Costner Cinema Chat

A site in which Kevin Costner's movies are discussed

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

How to screw up promotion of a movie, Part 1: TUOA Album

I guess there's going to be plenty to say about how New Line absolutely mucked up the promotion of The Upside of Anger; it's a tribute to positive word of mouth and good reviews, particularly for Joan Allen and KC, that the movie made a profit in theaters. So the first thing is about the release, or semi-release, of the soundtrack album.
At The Costner Network board, there is a string regarding the album:

http://p220.ezboard.com/fthecostnernetworkinternational64310frm10.showMessage?topicID=1594.topic

The album was not released in stores, something I've never heard of before with a movie soundtrack! It was released on iTunes software, on the Internet. Ridiculous and short-sighted. Typical New Line.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Box office

I've been reading about the struggles at the box office; overall, the revenue for the movies has been dropping from week to week. Let's forget for a second that ticket prices for everything except certain afternoon and early evening showings have skyrocketed, artificially inflating profits, and talk about the real problem; the quality of the films and the way they're rotated in and out of theaters--as it regards KC in particular.
Let's recall KC's rise to stardom in The Untouchables. Folks, that movie made $76 million in the United States (That's from the Internet Movie Database). In fact, KC's "hot streak" (1987-92) included only three films (out of eight he made) that crossed the $100 million mark in the United States: Dances With Wolves, Robin Hood and The Bodyguard, and of those three, Dances With Wolves never hit #1 in a single weekend. That suggests different rules were at work in the late 80s and early 90s; an element called "word of mouth." That's how The Untouchables and No Way Out became recognized as good movies, and how Bull Durham, Field of Dreams and Dances became immortals. Those films stayed in the theater for months.
For all the criticisms of KC, he was never one of the $100 million dollar babies in cinema; throughout his career, it's been the exception for him rather than the rule.
DVDs have replaced those long stays in the theater, and if that's the case, they should factor into the overall official tabulation of "box office." If that's the case, every movie KC has made has made a profit except for The Postman and 3,000 Miles to Graceland." Instead of going to the theaters, the people who would otherwise have seen movies like "Thirteen Days" and "Open Range" in theaters have been renting them or buying them in DVD form.
But the best experience of watching a movie (certainly true of a western with great vistas, like Open Range) is still in the theater. If ever there was a movie that should have been able to linger in the theater from word of mouth (which was there), that one was it. The same is true of The Upside of Anger. Instead, Disney and New Line just left them in wide release long enough to make profits, then yanked them for the high-octane fare, which, surprise, surprise, suddenly isn't giving those studios the same bang for their bucks as OR and TUOA did. That's bad business, folks; taking out two high-quality movies to put in junk.
These days, very few quality movies get a chance to latch onto word of mouth and linger in theaters, unless there are big stars with proven $100 million track records (Sandra Bullock is in Crash, which has been successful this year), or big producers (Tom Hanks and his wife produced My Big Fat Greek Wedding) are involved. Since KC doesn't have that $100 million string, he won't get that chance. But as we see from his career, studios aren't looking at the whole picture with him.

Friday, June 24, 2005

The Stunt Men and Women

Earlier this week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences refused a request to include an Oscar category for stunt work, without a real explanation. About a week ago, in an article published before the decision, someone suggested that the Academy might not want to intercede on the illusion that all actors do all their own stunts.
If that's the case, then I guess they would want to remove the Oscar categories for makeup and lighting, because we all know actors and actresses don't need that kind of help. Or they would want to remove the cinematography and music categories because they don't aid story and scenes at all. I didn't have much of an opinion about this issue until I thought about it from this viewpoint; then I concluded the Academy made a mistake.
Think of Norman Howell, for instance. KC does many of his own stunts, but what he doesn't do, Howell does, and very well. Not only that, but Howell has coordinated the stunts on many of KC's movies, among many others. Here's Howell's filmography:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0397917/

He almost lost his life on "Waterworld," when he was underwater. So he's paid his dues.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

AFI 100 Quotes

AFI Top 100 Quotes
Frankly my dear, KC movies got shortchanged in the AFI quotes.
"If you build it ... he will come" from Field of Dreams came in at Number 39....about 20-25 spots lower than I thought it should have been. Given the quote's use (or, let's be honest, misuse; almost nobody who uses it gets it right), it should have been in the teens. The critics and movie insiders who picked the list also seem to have developed a distate for extended quotes. Everything on that list was, at the most, two sentences. That meant "The Speech" ("I believe in the soul.....") from Bull Durham, which was in the top 400, got cut out of the top 100.
I thought it should have been somewhere in the 80s.One that should have been in the top 400 was Terrence Mann's speech near the end of FOD ("People will come, Ray......). On the Field of Dreams DVD, director Phil Alden Robinson explained that he filmed James Earl Jones saying it in the way we see. Then, he had Jones do it again, in full booming voice, to get reaction shots from KC, and that's the combo we see in the movie.
BTW, anyone notice that this list was missing people like Gregory Peck, Cary Grant (Though Mae West said "Come up some time, and see me" to him), Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart? Who would have guessed?
And two of my favorite movie quotes also got clipped: One from Casablanca ("I'm shocked, shocked to find there is gambling going on here," by Claude Rains) and one is from The Wizard of Oz ("Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.") And while I'll take "Frankly my dear" for number 1, ain't no way I agree with The Godfather quote for number 2; that spot would have gone to "Here's lookin' at you, kid," from Casablanca. And my number 3 would have been "There's no place like home," from The Wizard of Oz.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Greetings

Hi all!

Welcome to Costner Cinema Chat, a blog at which the objective is to discuss Kevin Costner's movies.
So here's how this blog will work:
1. I will post when there is a news story about Mr. Costner's movies, or a story about the movie industry in general that might have some connection to him. I will generally post links to those stories, with my comments. You can search for them in the Archives section, in the latest month.
2. I will also post to comment on your comments.
3. I will not post anything regarding Mr. Costner's personal life or tabloid material. This blog just covers his movies.

Here's what you can do:
1. Please be respectful. I will delete anything with profanity or anything that's insulting either to Mr. Costner or anyone who posts on this board.
2. This is a family site. Do not post any links or content that are indecent.
3. If you find something online about Mr. Costner's movie work that's relevant to the topic, please post the link.
4. Have fun!