In Hollywood's days past, stage-to-screen adaptations were a common trend. A well-known and loved stage property gets adapted to the screen and makes boatloads of money. Over the past ten to fifteen years, that trend has slowed a great deal, with play adaptations far less often gracing (or disgracing) the silver screen. By day, I work at both a campus cinema and photography studio, but by night, I'm an actor (and so far, a one-time director). I'm an anthropology major who does as much theatre as he can without declaring it as a major. I follow what's on Broadway (though I've never been to New York City), and read new plays as soon as they get to Borders, where I take full advantage of their reading chairs for afternoons at a time. When Tallahassee Little Theater selects its plays, a lot of what goes into a choice is marketable name recognition. A play like Laura or A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum draws people in due to their familiarity and pedigree as shows (and particularly movies, in the age of DVD). So from where and wherefore did this dry spell of Broadwayless Hollywood come from, and why did Hollywood return to the well? "No one wants to see musicals anymore!" the businessmen and the audiences cried, similar to the recent call for the death knell of the blockbuster special effects action film. The same is often said about 'arty theatre plays'. When did the tide turn, and 'artsy theatre stuff' become okay again? If you ask me, this is nothing more than the cyclical nature of the film industry spinning back around again. The arrival of Moulin Rouge brought musicals (and eventually non-musicals) back to the fore, and as a result, non-musicals got a better shot at showing up anywhere other than HBO or Showtime.

Let Them Watch Pay-Cable

Donald Margulies' Dinner With Friends won the Pulitzer prize, but inexplicably got sent straight to HBO, just as Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical got sent straight to Showtime. Neither was revolutionary, surely, but they weren't nearly as bad as the vast majority of sub-par movies put on 2000 screens during either film's year of release. On the flipside, Proof and the upcoming Bat Boy are both receiving a full theatrical release. The former selections have a four person cast, and the latter share similar comic-horror themes. Where's the difference? Was it just these execs at that particular time, or full studio schedules, or just the quality of Broadway's output? Am I longing for the Age of the Mogul to return? If you try to think of memorable plays of the last ten or fifteen years, a few notable ones have been held up by legal issues, but large-scale musicals like Parade and Ragtime are ripe for big screen adaptation, certainly moreso than the version we got of Chicago was (Best Picture award notwithstanding). For that matter, where the hell is Sweeney Todd? I know Sam Mendes was attached at one point, but certainly someone would pick this gem back up.

The Retread Train

With Hollywood so often banking on movie versions of TV shows with moderately large (or huge) budgets, you'd think they'd at least "stoop" to adapting popular material. Instead, there's a big pile of remakes in the queue. There have been rumblings about anything from a Guys and Dolls do-over to another Damn Yankees. Do we really need remakes of these films, or is Hollywood just relying on familiar brand recognition all over again? I tend to lean toward the latter, preferring my memories of Brando and Sinatra to the option of seeing Hugh Jackman and Nathan Lane try a retread on screen. Don't get me wrong, I think they're both fantastic performers, but the difference between a stage revival and a screen remake is that the stage revival is only around for a limited time, and the film will laways be around on DVD/Blu-Ray/whatever. No one wants the risk inherent in hoping the millions your studio piles into a gamble produces the next classic. As a result, cinematic ambition has taken a gigantic nosedive in the past few years. Will we see film versions of Frozen, Doubt, or The Pillowman any time soon, if at all? Probably not.

The Best News All Day

Do look out for the upcoming movie version of BJ and the Bear* coming this fall from Fox! I almost forgot to mention how much I'm anticipating the upcoming movie based on Land of the Lost**. I can't wait to read that script... Rolling Blackout As a secondary note, my access to the internet is still sporadic, but once that gets fixed, you'll see a more regular twice-weekly schedule. *this is a joke **this is not a joke

Apologies, everyone (those growing few of you) for the tardiness of my late week column. I'm in the process of starting a new job and have had precious little time at an internet connection to upload this edition of Arthouse Cowboy. What you're reading below was composed during Thursday evening and polished on Friday. I've updated it with some data from the weekend. Why didn't Hustle & Flow hit? I touched on this briefly on Tuesday, but the biggest problem in my mind was screen count. Hit up Box Office Mojo and look at Hustle & Flow's weekend per screen average since opening. It consistently has one of the best per screen averages on the board for movies with 1000+ screens. On its third weekend, after having dropped 50% first week to second and about 40% second week to third, Hustle & Flow still held a top ten per screen average. Why only open it on 1013 screens? Why increase a definite per-screen leader by only 3 screens over its two weekends following release? Fear. Studios have nothing to fear but fear of lost gross. Why wasn't Hustle & Flow a tentpole Paramount release? Paramount could easily slip it into Paramount Classics and still turn a profit, as it only cost them the acquisition fee and marketing cost. Marketing it'd make back on DVD, and since it was most often advertised on MTV, they were paying their own parent company for advertising. Hustle & Flow also opened against Bad News Bears, a not-as-big-as-School of Rock success. In fact, it did worse than a big-budget Master Flop, The Island. Anyone else notice Hustle & Flow missed overtaking War of the Worlds by about $900k on less than 1/3 as many screens? If there had been just 1500 of Bad News Bears's screens given to Hustle & Flow instead, I think cities like Tallahassee would have contributed a lot more in receipts. Hustle & Flow only screened at theatres considered by all to be far inferior to the AMC 20 in the local mall, where the vast majority of weekend movie traffic goes. Some people really do just show up to the cinema with no idea what they want to see. I see it every time I go. I know it's rather pointless to do so, but I hope movies meant to be seen on a big screen continue to be found that way first, rather than on a TV.

Burying Techniques

I get that the companies involved have screen booking agreements (that feel more like mafioso 'agreements') and there's very little to do once those advance decisions are made, but for the love of good movies, these bookers need to pay attention to their successes and turn these golden cheap acquisitions into the Blair Witch success stories they should be. When you can turn a $20 trick into $20k, for god's sake, make the big move and take the other guy's money. I can't believe I'm advocating big business practice, but that's how people see movies nowadays. I know that the strong arthouse crowd in my town would love to see Murderball, Broken Flowers, Me and You and Everyone We Know, The Aristocrats, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and a host of other juicy movies that are getting just a handful of screens each nationwide. That translates to on-the-cusp cities like mine not being worth the risk. A great deal of people still read the newspaper, despite the popular bandwagon claim that "print is dead, long live the internet". If some stellar little indie is coming to town, and provided you have a decent arthouse population, they'll come out. If you screen it, they'll show up. That is, they'll show up provided you do it right. Point in case: Dallas' Angelika Film Center (the others as well). They print schedules that give you booking dates for all their current films so that you know when they'll be leaving town. You'll also find when new blood is on the way in, so you can plan ahead. The ten or so screens are small, relatively speaking, at 100 or less seats. Whereas in a smaller town, Capturing the Friedmans would be screened for a couple weeks at most in a 400 seat screen, at the Angelika, the same film could be there for a couple months.

The Gatekeepers

I see all this marketing/booking/exhibiting business as one ridiculously complex example of Supply/Demand economics, so why don't the people with the multimillion-dollar salaries? The answer is simple, as outlined earlier: risk is a scary word. Of course, the aforementioned theory is especially true if you don't know what you have or don't know how to promote it. If there's one thing that's most apparent, it's that Paramount had no idea how to market this thing. Looking at the trailers, it's as if they're marketing to african-americans, yet at the same time, they're talking down to them as a demographic. "Come and see our movie about how you all want to be pimps and hoes" seems to be the thrust of that first trailer to black audiences. White audiences are scared off because it's really "black-centric", and the alleged target audience is put off because they feel insulted. Denzel won his Oscar for playing the The Evil Black Man, and Halle Berry picked up hers for The Black Hussy/Space Cadet. Jamie Foxx's win for Ray improved the landscape of black actors winning awards for positive (to some extent) roles, but the way that trailer everyone saw paints him, Terrence Dashon Howard looks like a pimp who wants nothing more than to be a rich Evil Black Man. The trailer shows none of D Jay's quiet, contemplative moments, nor any of the pain and sensitivity we get in the film itself. The TV spots were too little way too late. It really does sadden me that people aren't seeing this movie on the big screen, and instead are spending $30mill on Dukes because the people with the keys to the kingdom just plain locked the American public out. It's hard out there for a pimp, especially when The Businessman won't let him better himself.

Here I thought they were smart, these guys. Surely, they'd expand Hustle & Flow, I said. Naturally, they'd give it an extra push. No dice. I disagree with Jeff's assertion that the American public failed the movie. I think the studio (and the marketing department, as mentioned previously) failed the movie. A bad trailer, bad sneak preview promotion (at least in my area), and a LOUSY screen count contributed to a bungling of this would-be hit. No one threw a phone, no one evangelized a cultish religion, and no one re-cut their ad campaign around an Oscar winner. There were no stupid extenuating factors here, just a dropped ball.

Stewie Griffin: The Studio Nightmare

Family Guy has become a major sensation across the country due in large part to its popularity on college campuses. Late-night cable saved the show and brought it back to a prime-time Sunday slot. Fans rejoiced to hear that a Family Guy movie was in the works. Set to be released straight to DVD, it was to be called Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. It was expected to be one of the biggest-selling discs of the fall. Over the last couple weeks, that all changed. Someone got a hold of a digital copy of the movie, condensed it to CD-burnable size, and started distributing it on the net. The general consensus is that it isn't as good as people hoped, reminding me of all my friends who shelled out for the Wake Up, Ron Burgundy edition of the Anchorman DVD. Huge anticipation and then unmeasurable letdown. The movie itself is basically a three episode story arc wherein a near-death experience causes Stewie (the English-accented evil mastermind baby) to re-examine his life. He eventually he sets out to find his real father, unconvinced that Peter is indeed his real dad. It's entertaining enough that it beats out most of prime-time TV, but honestly, that doesn't mean much when network television is nothing more than eighty reality shows, five variants each of Law & Order and CSI. Don't get me wrong, fans of the show will love this thing, but the anticipation factor crossed with the "dude, I got the Family Guy movie by being a hacker, like totally and shit" excitement is going to send the profit for this into the toilet. As soon as suburban, non-technophile dads are downloading this thing (probably already happening by the time of this writing), Fox is dead in the water for making any money off of this. If anyone's listening or cares, the best thing to do would be just release it early. Those who aren't savvy will be more likely to grab it than they were given two whole months to hear about it being out there, free, and essentially three pretty-good episodes told all at once. Friday, I'll dig into the touchy area of video piracy and how it relates to college campuses, from the side of the college citizen. I should also note that I myself did not download the movie in the way many are as we speak/read/type, but watched it in the company of others who had. It's slowly reaching everyone, two to five at a time. Packing the DVD with extras will help, Fox, I promise.

...or, "Give it to me subtitled if you want to live". I said these words to a Blockbuster clerk (who didn't understand me) in Spanish once. I acted out my frustration in a foreign language no one but hispanics or ahead-of-the-curve anglos would understand. My father came to this country in '81, and speaks understandable English, but has refused to completely homogenize. He is proud of his Cuban heritage, and with it, the language. If there's anything he loves more than our family and being Chinese-Cuban, it's movies. He loves movies to the point that he rents them in lots of ten. I exaggerate merely for effect, but sometimes he lives up to that very exaggeration when no one needs to leave the house for a long weekend. In the days before DVD, we would rent movies from the next farthest away Blockbuster because they were the one that stocked Spanish Subtitled tapes. When he lived in Miami, Florida for a couple years (running a legitimate business killed by the Cuban Trade Embargo), you could get subtitled tapes of anything, and for cheap. It was a crapshoot in Garland, Texas. DVD, I thought, would change everything. A subtitle track doesn't require you to put out multiple releases of the same movie anymore, how hard could it be? Too hard for the home video distribs, apparently. I didn't even think to look, but upon arriving home for the holidays one year, I realized they'd screwed me anonymously, and long distance at that. Beijing Bicycle, 1776, Fahrenheit 9/11, Signs, Ronin, ANYTHING from the Sundance or Criterion labels...any of these were off-limits for quality viewing time. Just a few that come to mind that either have a French track and no Spainsh or nothing but English at all. The studios have gotten better (though Miramax conspicuously does it right and then wrong), but it was a BIG problem a couple years ago. For every disc like Lawrence of Arabia, which has so many subtitle tracks it makes you wonder if they invented any languages, there are 400 that are done wrong. There are times when I remember an odd day when at the Blockbuster counter I realize I can't properly share The Quiet American or Ghost Dog or even Adaptation with him. Those moments are when I utter the empty threat above happen on days like today, my old man's birthday. I would have sent him a movie, but not only could I not afford to (college budget), but it didn't have spanish subtitles. So I say to the DVD studios: Damelo subtitulado si quieres vivir. I promise you'd make more money selling these DVDs to the, oh...two or three spanish speakers in the states. Feliz cumple viejo. It only takes five words to demand subtitles, but five hundred to say happy birthday.

Back in the Saddle

I've somewhat caught up on the money-making movie releases of the last few weeks at last, seeing Fantastic Four this week. Before you worry I spent money on FF, I used a free ticket I got inside my Man in Fire Collector's Edition DVD (for which you'll soon find a review in the Discland column). You may recall my first column dealing with the Regal takeover of a couple theatres in Tallahassee, and the Governor's Square 12 is where I happened to be that night. At the box office, I asked the attendant how she enjoyed working for Regal. "It fucking sucks, and I already hate it after three days," was her quick reply, followed with, "I hope it gets better, but it proba--goddamn computer--yeah, it probably won't." The major cinema chains (Regal, AMC/Loews) aren't run by the original families and movie enthusiasts who started them. These companies are run by investment banking groups. Each of them have four or five people (if that) of people who decide the screen count fate of American cinemas. The sad fact though is that these same people who make these decisions are courted the same way radio DJs were (and their replacements, Program Directors) in the days of Payola. If you aren't savvy, back in the heyday of radio stars (before video killed them), the hot DJs across the country got every kind of payoff possible. Backstage passes, money, probably whores. Hell, I wasn't there, so I don't know, but if you wanted it, then a record company would produce it to get a single on regular play. In a similar fashion, the Chain Gang of programmers are liable to be swayed by "show our shit movie opening weekend on 2500 screens and we'll give you more screens than the other chain for Remake 2: The Movie Musical Sequel".

We Are Robots

The trailers finished off with a whimper (Ice Age 2: The Worst Idea Since Dumb and Dumberer) and then I saw the Regal preshow reel. For those who don’t know, it starts like a tacky hi-tech roller coaster with a Star Trek-style control panel interface. "Welcome to Regal Entertainment," begins a robo-voice. "I can't do that, Regal," I respond. The cinema-on-autopilot feeling didn't dissipate until I left. The whole place felt cold, lifeless, and unwelcoming. I also meant to mention today that my call to Dick Westerling, VP of Marketing for Regal, went unreturned and I was hung up on the next time I called (during business hours). The movie was underwhelming to say the least. Gimmicky bits felt right (the 'for the fans' stuff), but the movie was nothing but two hours of going-nowhere exposition. The fact that I spent 400 words talking about going to see it and only spent three sentences on the movie should speak for itself.

It's Insurmountable Out There For a Pimp

My contemplation about the state of cinema in America got me to thinking about where Per Screen Average Overlord Hustle & Flow was going. I lack official data, but it looks as if the geniuses at the helm added around 20 screens for Hustle & Flow. At this rate, March of the Penguins will be on 1500 screens before the ascension of D Jay is on that many. In a related note, the campus paper I contribute to ran my H&F review with the headline: Do the 'Hustle'. No, I'm not kidding, and no, I didn't write the headline myself. Regardless of the fact that they don't pay me, they cut my tag at the end featuring a link here. I guess they need to save the ink for their readership of twelve.

A Tease

Upcoming bits to look for from me: Some DVD reviews in Discland, but more prominently... Tuesday you'll find a review of the straight-to-DVD Family Guy movie. You know, the one set for release in late September. Hey Fox Video, move the release up or you won't sell as many. Just a thought.

My initial plan for Arthouse Cowboy is to do a somewhat shorter, reactive piece early in the week (Monday or Tuesday) coming hot off the past weekend, with a more substantive, multifaceted column later int he week (Thursday of Friday). After seeing Wedding Crashers last week, I also had an idea for a recurring feature...

Talking At the Movies

It doesn't even bug me that much, sometimes, because the above can actually enhance the experience for me. TatM will feature actual conversation I overhear week-to-week at the cinema. At War of the Worlds: Guy Next to Me Who Checks His Cell Phone for Texts and Receives Calls: "Dude, why don't the cars work?" His Fellow Text-Checker: "Bro [prounced "braaahh"], they said nothing electric works 'cause of the big lightning thing." Guy (as he checks for a text message, and emphatically): "But Bro, it's got a battery." His Pal: "Dude, they'll explain it, just wait." At Wedding Crashers: Dr. Quinn, Barechested Woman bares her femininity to Owen, Butterscotch Stallion Owen says something along the lines of "what should I do?" Thugged Out Seventeen Year Old: (pointing his finger at the screen) "Get up in that old bitch's rug!" For reference, the involved pillars of society were white as rice on a paper plate in a snowstorm.

The Indie Hustle

Hustle & Flow had a terrible first trailer. The rhythm of the newer TV spots syncs up better with the thick beats present in Craig Brewer's piece about attaining one's goals in spite of hardship and pessimism. At first, I thought the MTV acquisition was going to make this film open wide, right alongside Bad News Bears and the incredibly shrinking The Island. I was surprised to see it booked on 1013 screens, more than 700 less than even The Devil's Rejects, and 1/3 of the 3000 enjoyed by the aforementioned wide openers. The receipts told the tale on Monday, when H&F pulled a per-screen average of $7,914, bested (in 1000+ screen bookers) solely by Wedding Crashers. Hustle & Flow didn't just do well, it kicked the rest of the weekend movies' collective asses. How did MTV first bungle the marketing and then the booking on a movie everyone knew was going to be a big deal after its huge Sundance showing? This whole debacle (or so it seemed at the time) verged on pissing me off to grand effect. H&F a savagely loud and at once quietly dignified movie so good at nailing human nature, had been put down by the very company that wanted to make money off it. It was infuriating. Only the Regal theatres in town are showing it, so the vast majority of Tallahasseans missed even having it as a choice if they went to the mall cinema. Damn it, it deserves to be shown, I said, and I couldn't get why it got so stupidly underbooked.

The Slow Burn

Leave it to a major multinational media empire to confuse me. They're playing The Slow Burn. The Slow Burn is what I call a subtle (or not so subtle) marketing trend associated with the huge popularity of "indie" movies as a commodity rather than an aspect of a film's production (the source of the budget). There are a few "big movies" left for the summer, but none, I think, that can fend off H&F expanding its screen count hot off of great word of mouth. The movie is still just as cool and non-studio as its roots prove, but MTV wants this thing to be on everyone's lips during award season as "the indie sensation that won America's hearts and pocketbooks" around award season time. These guys are brilliant. They're devils, but they're brilliant. Opening the movie wide against the (now) failures of last weekend's "blockbusters" wouldn't have worked, as there weren't that many screens to get. With those flicks dropping screens like B or C-list actors dropping sequel rumors at a premiere, as well as the disappearance of early summer hits to the depths of second-run, H&F will be able to pick up screens left, right, and upside down. The thing that still sticks in my craw is that if the studio had full confidence in this flick on its merits, they would have found a wide release weekend for it and booked it big. The Slow Burn is the immediate indicator of a studio playing it safe with an indie just in case it does tank, or doesn't "find and audience," or whatever marketing/p.r. malarky they're chucking onto press releases this minute. Studios will keep cranking out the mediocre because that's "what's done," and it's the programming equivalent of "I was just following orders," but instead, it's "Herbie: Fully Loaded is what America wants." If MTV/Paramount/CBS/Viacom did effectively hustle the American public, I gotta say, "play on playa."

I decided a while back that reading the right columns and borrowing, buying, and watching too many pricey DVDs was a good alternative to spending my entire undergrad life doing nothing but taking film classes that I may or may not learn much (if anything) from. That said, Arthouse Cowboy will cover a wide variety of subjects, often focusing on the state of my local moviegoing scene and exploring the hostile landscape of the college cinematic experience. Unlike most Texans, I don't always use "y'all" in place of the less-rednecky "you." I do, however, come from the suburb of Dallas that was allegedly the model for the animated Mike Judge TV show King of the Hill. Some of us are just lucky that way.

The Not-So Open Range

I rarely get the chance to travel to larger cities that are within the scope of those "limited engagements" in which interesting movies tend to play most immediately. In these cities, you might see a restored print of Godzilla (the original 1954, Emmerich-free one), or something like Ladies in Lavender and even Rize without taking a long drive. One could never be very sure whether you'd have access to such films in Tallahassee. It'd be a crapshoot as to whether the local arthouse (Miracle 5) would show the little film that NY and LA see no matter what. With the recent acquisition of the Eastern Federal Corporation by Regal, that probability becomes less likely yet. The big news in cinema chain consolidation is the AMC-Loews merger, which effectively gives the world the two mega-chains of Regal and AMC/Loews (or whatever it'll get renamed). A couple months ago, Tallahasseeans were made aware that Eastern Federal, a southeastern U.S. movie theatre chain, was being bought by Regal. Eastern Federal has (well, had) twenty-two cinemas (238 screens) in three states (FL, NC and SC). Every so often, you'll see Ong Bak or another small release film hit the AMC or Governor's Square (but very rarely), leaving the Miracle as the only first-run arthouse in town. The only other options are the Cinemark Movies 8 and FSU's Student Life Cinema. The SLC has a dedicated once-a-week "cafe cinema" series and once again, very rarely, you'll see a piece the calibre of The Upside of Anger at the Movies 8. The first reaction around town from arthouse cinema patrons was outright panic. Where would Tallahasseeans see their beloved arthouse movies? The AMC 20, the IMAX? Not a chance in hell. The only thing people could do was upgrade their Netflix accounts in advance and get settled in for their role in The Big Fade. Staying away from the theatre was no longer a choice, but a necessity for the discerning moviegoer. At first glance, it would seem the arthouse was dead, so long live the Megacorporation Mediocreplex.

Light on the Horizon

Upon further investigation, that may not be the case at all. I jumped onto the Regal website to look over their Art Cinema theatres, and most of those listed don't remotely reflect that description. All of the aforementioned Non-Art Cinemas have over ten screens, which bodes well for the Miracle 5. There are a couple cinemas of a similar screen count that Regal programs similarly to the way the Miracle has been typically programmed. Taking a look at selected locations, notably Austin's Arbor 8, Atlanta's Tara 4, and Irvine's University Town Center 6, I was filled with hope. The Arbor I already knew as a decent location used by South by Southwest (a festival near and dear to my heart). Only two movies currently showing there classify as "mainstream" releases (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Cinderella Man). The University Town Center 6 features two movies I've never heard of, which is a minor miracle if you ask my friends. Those and a couple others are fine, it's the Tara 4 that worries me. At the time I did this research, on one of Tara's four coveted screens lay The Longest Yard (and that's precisely what it does, is just lay there). It's frightfully similar to the recent marquee at the Miracle 5. Whereas Miracle as recently as last week featured The Longest Yard along with four other movies, for the four weeks following its opening, it was on two screens. Films appeared and disappeared on the other three screens, but Sandler's wrecking crew persisted on two of them. The Regal press release came out in April, and it has been whispered that their guys had already started to take the programming reins by then, with this similarity to Tara at the time helping confirm those very suspicions. So, the potential positive comparisons to the Arbor & University aren't enough to assure me or anyone I know that our only sure source for smaller release movies is safe from Regal reshaping or outright closing Miracle in a year's time. It’s times like those that make me question the existence of God and whether he/she/it's punishing the human race, or just me all by myself. Regal cancelled all post-7:30pm shows at both Eastern Federal theatres with no notice outside of their box office listings at the theatres Thursday night (7.21) so that they could re-model and inventory both locations. I spoke to a Regal manager about the changeover that night, annoyed that I couldn't get into the now-cancelled 9:30pm Wedding Crashers. The gentleman smiled and directed me to a number at their corporate offices when he asked whether I was and I answered that indeed I was with the media. As of Friday morning, both cinemas were rebranded the Regal Miracle 5 and the Regal Governor's Square Stadium 12. The Tallahassee Film Society has spread word that Regal has informed them that they're "dedicated to Art Cinema," but we'll see what really happens to the little cinema that (usually) could. I'll followup with further developments, as well as photos and reactions from local folks, but this is all I have for the moment. As for now, all I can do is wait and hope. After three revisions (as its posting got pushed further and further back), this first piece turned out to be a beast so I'm going to hold on my Hustle and Flow analysis until after the weekend. My five word review for the moment: worth paying more than twice.