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December 26, 2002
Week Two: Part 2
Week Two: Part I
Week One: 12.12.02

It’s amazing how your brain can get in your way…

Last year at this time, I was in Miami, jamming through a large pile of short films submissions for the film festival I was running, vaulting towards the painful end of a relationship, and not writing a column.  So when I finally saw A Beautiful Mind, the movie I touted as the likely Oscar winner sometime in November, I couldn’t get in my own way and change my mind publicly, no matter what I felt about the film.

So when I found myself bailing out on Chicago, the film I picked as this year’s Oscar favorite before any other journalist a couple of months ago, I probably should have popped a short film into the VCR and found some woman to be dysfunctional with before I actually made my case in print… 

After being perceived by some as Mr. Anti-Gangs (of New York), it strikes me as funny that I am the only person out there who seems not to have been shocked by the movie’s $9 million start last weekend.  Everyone seems to be abuzz, knives out and teeth showing… but a Martin Scorsese film opening to $9 million is just about right.  Bringing Out The Dead opened 30 percent lower.  Kundun never grossed as much in total as Gangs did last weekend.  Casino started just under $10 million.  The Age of Innocence opened on a lot fewer screens with a lot better per-screen, but topped out at $32 million.  And Cape Fear, Scorsese’s biggest American grosser with just under $80 million, opened just over $10 million.  So where is the surprise?

Of course, my feeling is that Miramax got out of the Scorsese business when the budget went over by as much as 50 percent,  and suddenly was trying to make what was naturally a $50 million domestic grossing movie into a $100 million domestic grossing movie.  Bzzt!  Wrong!  The sad part is that a better movie was lost in the process.  And “pathetic” was what came to mind when I saw Scorsese on a taped episode of Charlie Rose, just waiting for a slot where he could get in his “this is the only cut” speech, even though the question on the table was… well, let me transcribe.  Daniel Day Lewis is talking about the acting choices he made… 

Scorsese:  For me there are a thousand other choices… how big he should be in the frame… or who’s in the background… “What’s that person doing in the background?  That’s fine.” So it goes on like that and ultimately, I always look at a picture… I gotta say, like… they talk about now these director’s cut and DVD… No this is it.  This is the picture.  There’s no director’s cut.  This is the one.  It’s the result of a process that’s gone on for a long period of time.” 

Uh, what did a Director’s Cut have to do with what they were discussing?  And does anyone think it’s a coincidence that this “fact” is in virtually every interview that Scorsese has done for the film?  “I gotta say,” indeed.

Later, Rose asks:  “This film was scheduled for Christmas, the 25th… some say…”

There is a lot of hemming and hawing…

Scosese: Harvey Weinstein is great… in marketing.   Great… showman.  It reminds me of the other Hollywood studios of Selznick and uh….” Blah blah blah.

Anyway… I don’t hate this picture and I love the filmmaker.  And the real question is whether all this negative chatter over stunningly unsurprising box office is going to knock the movie right out of the Oscar race. 

And the answer is… I don’t know.  But it seems that the negative box office mythology - far more damaging than any chatter over an alternate cut - combined with a dark, bloody story is not going to help the film along.  I would peg the domestic box office totaling out at $40 - $50 million… as I would have expected before ever seeing the film.  Ironically, I expect about the same pre-Oscar nomination box office for Chicago and Adaptation and it’s more than I expect from About Schmidt, Far From Heaven or The Pianist.  Yet, it’s somehow a big story on Gangs.  Weird.

I have also had my head turned a bit by the Critics Scoreboard here at MCN.  The top three films, by far, are Talk To Her, Y tu Mama Tambien and Far From Heaven.  And while Far From Heaven has a good shot at a Best Picture nod, it is still a dark horse, and the two Spanish-language films are near impossibilities as Best Picture nominees.  Schmidt, Rings, Adaptation, Chicago, Gangs and The Pianist round out the non-animated field.  Those six films and Far From Heaven pretty much seem to be most of the field for Best Picture, along with Catch Me If You Can (currently tied at #24), The Hours (currently #12) and Antwone Fisher (currently #59).  There are currently 101 films that have at least one vote on the MCN scoreboard.

Anyone who was holding out hope for Pinocchio can, like Miramax, relax… it’s a sure fire addendum to Worst of 2002 lists everywhere.  A friend saw it with her 6 year-old today and is desperately trying to figure out how she might ever forgive Roberto Begnini. 

The irony of Best Foreign Language is that neither one of the two films on the top of the Critics Scoreboard, above all American product, are eligible in the category.  Neither are other ranking films Time Out, The Fast Runner, The Piano Teacher, I’m Going Home, In Praise of Love, Italian For Beginners, Late Marriage, What Time Is It There?, Devils On The Doorstep, Safe Conduct or Russian Ark.  Of the potential foreign language nominees, only Devdas and The Crime of Father Amaro have gotten any votes at all.  (Miramax has officially pushed my beloved City of God as a 2003 movie.) 

The holidays haven’t changed the Oscar picture too much, except perhaps on the Gangs thing.  Adaptation is still on just 109 screens.  About Schmidt is selling out its few screens.   Antwone Fisher has big ads and few screens.  Chicago, The Pianist and The Hours will trickle out, just barely, over the weekend.  Catch is doing business, though it’s hard to gauge what will be seen as a success and what will be seen as “disappointing.” 

Right now, the only legit buzz is coming from the Top Ten lists.  Beyond that, it’s one or two people at a time… and everyone has a story.

 

The next edition of 15 Weeks to Oscar will appear next Thursday.

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