Gross Behaviour - by Leonard Klady

Now is the Summer of Our Discontent

In a couple of days, the start of the summer movie season will begin with the launch of Van Helsing. A week later Troy will join the fray, followed by Shrek 2 and The Day After Tomorrow. For the literally inclined, May 7 is about six weeks in advance of the true calendar summer. It's also well ahead of the end of the school term when the core of avid movie goers find they have an increasing amount of leisure time.

From early May through to mid-August - roughly 15 weeks - it's summer because the Hollywood majors have staked out the span as the most fertile period to sell movie tickets. It's not merely a cavalier notion nor has it occurred by happenstance. But prior to diving into how and why the summer film season evolved as it has, a personal anecdote might be helpful.

About two decades back, I was approached to book and run a movie theater. It was a single screen with about 350 seats that over the years had gone from a neighborhood movie house to second run and, prior to my arrival, was playing soft core erotica. Joe, the owner, had seen his gold mine tarnish as its novelty faded and police raids and lawsuits had taken the fun and profit out of the equation.

With a business partner, we presented Joe with a plan to refurbish the lobby and present a program of specialized and classic movies. He nodded and I can only guess that it appealed to him because we were offering something at the other end of the spectrum from what had generated so many headaches and ulcerous reactions. The physical changes were cosmetic rather than structural and about six weeks later the newly dubbed Festival Cinema opened for business. It was not an overnight success but week after week, attendance grew. During the second month, we introduced a Friday night Midnight Show with Gimme Shelter and had our first sell out.

On Monday, when Joe came into the office, he was floored by the response to the city's first Midnight screening. He got very excited and declared that we had to start earlier and have two of these shows a night. Lin, my partner, was appalled by the suggestion and tried to argue him out of the lunacy but logic proved to ill serve her points. When the heat between the two rose to an uncomfortable level, I decided to insert myself into the dialogue. I stopped Lin and said she shouldn't dismiss Joe's idea in total; he had made some good points. Then I swung around, looked him in the eye and said, "what time do you want to start the Midnight screening?" The question seemed to freeze the air. He thought for a moment and it all sank in. I could see the disappointment in his eyes and casually tossed out that there was nothing to stop us from doing a Saturday Midnight show.

The important thing to note is that I was wrong or, at the very least, too narrow in my thinking about movie exhibition. Why should the tyranny of the clock dictate when to program a 12 o'clock screening? Even worse, I dissuaded Joe from forcing me to think out of the box like a movie mogul and set the public's watch to when Midnight suited my needs and profitability.

In the not so distant past, my sort of level headed thinking had convinced the studios that school recess was a time when people from eight to 80 wanted a break from Hollywood's wares. Given the option of the sun and the beach or being cooped up in a dark room with images reflected from the screen was always going to be a losing proposition for the proprietors of the most popular art. The majors still opened its programmers during those hot summer months but the season was largely the domain of folks like American-International's Sam Arkoff. Teenage movies were still a niche genre in the 1950s and '60s and the folk in Tinsel Town had yet to start narrowcasting its audience.

There was no seminal moment that changed that attitude. It's tempting to point to the 1975 release of Jaws but that film had a far more salutary effect on film marketing and distribution. A couple of years later, Foul Play emerged as a big summer success and the Goldie Hawn-Chevy Chase romantic comedy's box office wasn't fueled by the zitgeist. What was sinking in was that the entire population hadn't pitched its tent at the beach in June and sunk into the sand until Labor Day. Every summer there would be a couple of thrill ride attractions to lure people away from the barbecue whether it was a new Star Wars episode, Raiders of the Lost Ark or Die Hard.

However, the point of no return was the summer of 1989 that began in the last week of May with the release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The buzz movie was Batman and the season was dotted with well appointed franchises and sequels for James Bond (License to Kill), a fifth movie Star Trek and Ghostbusters II. Pinned to the rest of the release schedule were modest expectations. Indiana Jones was followed by The Dead Poets Society, Honey I Shrunk the Kids opened the same weekend as Batman and then there was When Harry Met Sally and Parenthood. Even a third installment of The Karate Kid proved competitive and the sequel to the modestly successful Lethal Weapon was a much bigger hit than its inspiration.

It was the cinematic equivalent of the gold rush. Success bred success and the industry simply could not believe its good fortune. A year later, the stories were all about lightning not striking twice.

The summer of '89 was blessed by serendipity. It had an eclectic slate with films that specifically appealed to youngsters and adults; avids and irregulars. It could never have been orchestrated and there was no crystal ball that would have foretold that so many movies would turn out so well and be entertaining and commercial.

It would be nice to think that Hollywood has been pursuing that holy golden grail in the ensuing decade and a half. But rather than embrace all sectors, all ages, it has zeroed in on the easiest target - frequent movie goers 25 years old and younger. An industry maven likened contemporary summer releases to a series of thrilling rides in an amusement park. He pointed out that people that operate those ventures understand that patrons will go on a couple of these spectacular visceral, stomach churning attractions in the course of a visit. However, he said that if Hollywood moguls ran the operation they would want visitors to try out every single ride and therein lies the seeds to a self-defeating scenario. Sooner or later a 100% junk food diet will have a very bad effect.

Whereas '89 was all embracing, it's now rare for a mainstream adult film to find a summer slot. Whether it's Saving Private Ryan or Seabiscuit, a serious pedigree movie is such an anomaly in the sea of sequels, comic book adaptations and science-fiction spectacles that it fuels endless discussion in the media about its commercial prospects. What's generally missed in the analysis is that these films aren't competing for the same audience and by virtue of their quality and uniqueness always attract a much larger audience than industry touts had perceived.

There is not simply room for a drama without effects or pyrotechnic delights in the summer marketplace, there's enough space to accommodate a half dozen such ventures. However, slotting one has evolved into the equivalent of a game of "chicken," with all players waiting for someone to blink. Arguably, there's not a single flutter in the 2004 lineup that includes at least nine sequels and four remakes.

However, there are several films that would appear to be principally for adults and that's perhaps a small step toward expanding the movie audience. While no one can claim paternity for the landscape of summer movies, it has shaped and been shaped tremendously by Steven Spielberg. Apart from movies produced under his aegis, his summer fare has included Jaws, Raiders, E.T. and Minority Report. But in more recent time, he's been very canny about counter-programming with Ryan and Road to Perdition and this summer offers Terminal, a romantic comedy with a thread of social commentary despite its sci-fi sounding title. Tom Hanks stars as a man stuck in an airport when his passport expires and his country no longer exists. It was inspired by an incident that occurred at London's Heathrow with considerable liberties taken in its transfer to screen.

The other movies aimed at the plus 25s are remakes and an adaptation. Shall We Dance was one of the biggest box office successes in Japan and a major niche hit in the U.S. Again, the tone is light comic with some serious underlying themes about work and emotional isolation. The coat hangar plot centers on a middle aged man who secretly begins to take dance lessons and finds a new emotional outlet in the activity and with the other eccentrics in his class. The long gestating adaptation headlines Richard Gere and an ensemble featuring Jennifer Lopez and Stanley Tucci.

Also being recycled and set in the present is The Manchurian Candidate with Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep in prominent roles. The 1962 original was more controversial than commercial but has stood the test of time so well one forgets that it wasn't a hit. The new version retains the structure of a political thriller with chicanery and dark history stalking a presidential election.

The final outpost for the mature is the screen adaptation of The Notebook, a best selling melodrama that was an Oprah book selection. Like the other trio it has an impressive cast (James Garner, Gena Rowlands and up and comers Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams) and has something a little bit more substantive on its mind beside love conquering all obstacles. I can't imagine that the quartet of films mentioned individually will not have real qualities even if some may falter dramatically and by the very nature of their aspirations will be accorded benefit of the doubt by a critical community whelmed but not necessarily awed by Catwoman, Dodgeball: A True Story, King Arthur, I, Robot and several dozen blasts from the present.

The philosopher and writer George Santayana is best known for his observation that "those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes." It's an observation lost on the movers and shakers of the film industry and not simply because they appear to be using the template of the summer of 1990. The bedrock of the upcoming movie season whether serious or frivolous in intent is old movies. The remakes, sequels and franchise titles are by definition drawing from the well but even the so-called originals appear to be desperately trying to recapture the spirit of some bygone entertainment. Studio bean counters will confirm stoically that retreads perform at 66% or 63% of prior editions and that it is an exercise in diminishing financial returns. It's also an exercise in other types of diminishing returns that are not so easily quantified but to paraphrase Harry Cohn, if my ass twitches there's something wrong and there's a whole lotta shakin' going on in Hollywood today.