Every once in awhile, I'll seek out these types of headlines. This one, as recently as last year, asked, Is the Pixar Brand Failing?
The article - written in the months before Up was released - goes on to quote a lot of stuff about metrics and how inflation is artificially raising the purported box office tallies. Specifically, it targets Wall-E and Ratatouille as indicative of this supposed "failing". But Wall-E cost $180M to make and domestically made $224M - a nice profit. Worldwide it made $533M. And when I look at the worldwide box office for Ratatouille ... look, I just don't understand how a movie that makes over half a billion dollars can be seen as a flop/bomb/failure.
The article quotes a New York Times story that stated, "Richard Greenfield of Pali Research downgraded Disney shares to sell last month, citing a poor outlook for Up as a reason." And once again, this happens because short-sighted bean counters didn't see the potential. Up ended up making nearly $300M domestically and $727M globally, making it the studio's second biggest hit after Finding Nemo. It went on to be the second animated film ever nominated for Best Picture. Pixar's brand is definitely failing.
This weekend, Toy Story 3 garnered $109 million dollars. In literally four days. It's Pixar's biggest opening weekend ever, shooting past that of The Incredibles at $70,467,623. It becomes the eleventh Pixar film - out of eleven - to open at #1 at the box office. No Pixar film has made less than $160M, and the film that did that was A Bug's Life, which had the second-lowest budget of any Pixar feature and was released in 1998, when $160M was still considered a staggering blockbuster. Every Pixar film has been a critical and commercial success. Even its weakest film, Cars, received generally positive reviews, and has generated the studio's biggest merchandising revenue stream - as of last year, over $3M in merch alone. There's a reason why Cars 2 is currently in production.
I'm not sure where the almost rabid desire to see Pixar fail comes from. Professional jealousy? Good old schadenfreude? There was a big to-do this week about "the only two reviewers who hate Toy Story 3," which has received almost universal praise elsewhere. The "reviewers" - I'd hate to call them critics and demean the profession - didn't seem to have really seen the movie. One of them states boldly that, because real branded toys are used in the film, it's not a movie, it's an advertisement. The other one doesn't really discuss the film at all, focusing more on the MPAA rating and the budget.
So it seems that the people who are determined to see this studio take one in the chin are looking at the metrics, the budgets, the ratings, the inflation, the business. In all this, people seem to forget what drives people to Pixar movies: a good story that happens to be unique and universal at the same time. Good writing, good directing, good acting. That's it. That's all. It's simple and it's stupid, but that's the formula. Make a good movie and people will come see it. Maybe it doesn't work out that way for every film - a lot of deserving movies fail and a lot of crap succeeds - but it works for Pixar, and it keeps working for them.
$109 million in a single weekend. Is Pixar's brand failing? What do you think?
Monday, June 21, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Glisk
When I was sixteen, I had what I thought was the most brilliant idea of my entire life. I was going to somehow merge the two overriding elements of my existence - being a homosexual and being a Stephen King fan - into one. I would call my group GLISK (an acronym I went giddy for because I was 1. a huge nerd and 2. a huge gay) and it would be short for Gays & Lesbians Into Stephen King. This was going to be massive, and I'd find other gay fans of King, and we'd hang out and talk about how we all had crushes on Steve Kemp in Cujo, despite the fact that he was pretty much a tool. A sexy, sexy tool.
A few things prevented Glisk (the acronym has now become a regular word due to my familiarity with it, like Epcot) from happening. (1) I'm not really good with organizing, and (2) a lot of gay people think Stephen King is homophobic.
There are a lot of reasons for this, I think. There's a scene in It where a gay guy is brutalized and murdered, and cries of homophobia following its publication were rampant. King explained the scene saying that it was pretty much - no pun intended - straight reporting. An actual gay murder happened in Bangor, and King used it in the book as a way to tie into It's targeting of the fringier members of society. Reading the chapter carefully, you'll actually find a lot of pro-gay sentiment in it, including some thoughts from a straight bar owner who sort of accidentally opens a gay bar and is relieved to find that his clientele "has found a way of getting along that straight men haven't."
In The Stand, a bisexual woman kills herself ... but it's a heroic death. In "Rita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption," there's a lot of gay rape, but King is careful to mention that there are other, non-rapey relationships that go on in prison that work just as well as straight ones. After King's daughter came out, there was a huge uptick in gay supporting characters, including heroic ones in Insomnia and Cell.
Yesterday, I picked up 'Salem's Lot for the first time in a few years because I need to do a review for an upcoming book. In the first hundred pages, I ran across a number of epithets - fag, queer, sissy, etc. But what struck me weren't the words so much as the sentiment behind them. The characters in 'Salem's Lot are using hurtful words, but people seem to accept "gay" as a fact rather than something gross or aberrant. At one point, one blue-collar worker remarks to another that Barlow & Straker, the new people in town, "are probably queer for each other. Going to redecorate the house and make it look nice. Good for business." And that's it. And that's interesting. They go immediately from the concept that these guys are probably gay to their good business sense. And these aren't high-education people, but grunting moving dudes. Later on, someone mentions he buys his used books from "a sissy fella" a few towns over. It's mentioned, sure, but there's no revulsion or even pause with it. It's like saying he buys his books from an Irish guy.
Now, look. Maybe I'm being overly apologetic. There is a scene in It where the mere suggestion of homosexuality drives someone insane. But I honestly think this is a character-by-character basis. The same character is a racist, half-nuts bully who also poisons a dog and shoots his father, sort of susceptible to going full-on psycho.
I've long thought about writing a book on the subject, or a long essay, but the truth is, it's a really narrow subject. I'm not sure anything like this would sell, or even be interesting to any section of the population. But still, I find it interesting. So maybe I'll write it sometime anyway. Thoughts?
A few things prevented Glisk (the acronym has now become a regular word due to my familiarity with it, like Epcot) from happening. (1) I'm not really good with organizing, and (2) a lot of gay people think Stephen King is homophobic.
There are a lot of reasons for this, I think. There's a scene in It where a gay guy is brutalized and murdered, and cries of homophobia following its publication were rampant. King explained the scene saying that it was pretty much - no pun intended - straight reporting. An actual gay murder happened in Bangor, and King used it in the book as a way to tie into It's targeting of the fringier members of society. Reading the chapter carefully, you'll actually find a lot of pro-gay sentiment in it, including some thoughts from a straight bar owner who sort of accidentally opens a gay bar and is relieved to find that his clientele "has found a way of getting along that straight men haven't."
In The Stand, a bisexual woman kills herself ... but it's a heroic death. In "Rita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption," there's a lot of gay rape, but King is careful to mention that there are other, non-rapey relationships that go on in prison that work just as well as straight ones. After King's daughter came out, there was a huge uptick in gay supporting characters, including heroic ones in Insomnia and Cell.
Yesterday, I picked up 'Salem's Lot for the first time in a few years because I need to do a review for an upcoming book. In the first hundred pages, I ran across a number of epithets - fag, queer, sissy, etc. But what struck me weren't the words so much as the sentiment behind them. The characters in 'Salem's Lot are using hurtful words, but people seem to accept "gay" as a fact rather than something gross or aberrant. At one point, one blue-collar worker remarks to another that Barlow & Straker, the new people in town, "are probably queer for each other. Going to redecorate the house and make it look nice. Good for business." And that's it. And that's interesting. They go immediately from the concept that these guys are probably gay to their good business sense. And these aren't high-education people, but grunting moving dudes. Later on, someone mentions he buys his used books from "a sissy fella" a few towns over. It's mentioned, sure, but there's no revulsion or even pause with it. It's like saying he buys his books from an Irish guy.
Now, look. Maybe I'm being overly apologetic. There is a scene in It where the mere suggestion of homosexuality drives someone insane. But I honestly think this is a character-by-character basis. The same character is a racist, half-nuts bully who also poisons a dog and shoots his father, sort of susceptible to going full-on psycho.
I've long thought about writing a book on the subject, or a long essay, but the truth is, it's a really narrow subject. I'm not sure anything like this would sell, or even be interesting to any section of the population. But still, I find it interesting. So maybe I'll write it sometime anyway. Thoughts?
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Sex In the City II
There's a reason why Sex In the City 2 is like Grease 2, but we'll get to that in a minute. The real shocker of Sex in the City 2 isn't that it's overlong and borderline atrocious, it's that it's leagues better than the first film. I'm not sure if this fact should shock or dismay, but mostly it just fills me with dull ambivalence.
The first question has to be: is the movie bad? The answer? I'm not sure. It's not good, that much is obvious. But there are good parts, and that's what's most infuriating.
No. No, wait, I take that back. Most infuriating is that Sex in the City 2 features, as its main character, an unlikable shrew of a woman with whom we are all supposed to relate. This shouldn't be hard, I think. I recall relating to her (mostly) on the TV show. Despite her expensive tastes, she seemed somehow earthy and interesting. A little self-involved, perhaps, but still a formidable main character with whom the audience's sympathies could easily lie.
In Sex In the City 2, Carrie is at turns shrill and unbearable, unreasonable and ridiculous. And she wears this one hat that could almost literally house a small, poor family. Her marriage problems almost border on existential, and in a better movie, that angle could have been played up. Every time she says she enjoys something, even slightly, her husband (Mr. Big) chooses to escalate those enjoyments to an unreasonable point. She likes a couch and he makes it his nest. She likes an old movie on TV, he installs a TV in their bedroom. She takes two days off from him to go write in her old apartment, he institutes it as a weekly occurrence. It's not that these aren't valid concerns a wife might have every right to complain about. Instead, she nags that they don't go out every single night, and eat take-out once in awhile. And she doesn't do it in a way that elicits any sort of sympathy, either: she's like a demanding, cartoon shrew.
The other women fare a little better. Miranda's new boss is a sexist (though the utter lack of any other women in her entire office seems suspect), Samantha's fighting off menopause, and Charlotte is finding out that motherhood is not all about baking cupcakes in vintage clothing. (Roger Ebert makes a note about that in his review; after some thought, I think Charlotte wearing a vintage dress making cupcakes actually fits for the character, trying to literally have it all at once.) These all seem like realistic, albeit heightened, problems - all of which are far, far more interesting than Carrie's. To be fair, though, a time-lapse video of plaster hardening would be far more interesting than Carrie's problems.
When, via some plot mechanations, the girls fly off to Abu Dhabi to "go someplace rich," things really start to skid off the rails. (1) New York City, for these women, IS someplace rich. There's lip service paid to the sagging economy, but it's one of those "show, don't tell" moments authors learn to avoid in, say, 5th grade Comp. (2) This is when the movie decides it has a Theme, and that Theme is Women Are Oppressed the World Over. It's not a bad theme, as themes go, and in a better movie with some smart handling, it can absolutely work. In this movie, womens' consciousness is awakened with the subtlety of a jackhammer on asphalt. During one otherwise okay moment where Our Girls sing "I Am Women" at karaoke, a number of Abu Dhabi women watching in the crowd seem to have a spiritual awakening. Oh wait, they seem to be thinking, those American women are right. I AM woman! It's pandering and insulting, not just to women, but all moviegoers.
(Oh, and speaking of insults to moviegoers: a cardinal rule in filmmaking is that you never, NEVER show clips of better movies in your crappy movie. It's why you don't see anyone watching Citizen Kane in Leprechaun 4. SITC2 has the audacity to not only show bits of It Happened One Night, but also rip off one of its central gags. Does it work? Eh, sort of. But mostly we're reminded that It Happened One Night won the Top 5 Oscars, and that we're still watching Sex In the City 2.)
Okay, so here's how this film is like Grease 2: smack dab in the middle of the movie is a scene that belongs in a better movie. Charlotte and Miranda are talking about motherhood. It's a scene they have to themselves. In it, they're bonding about why motherhood is harder than it seems to be, and why it's okay to admit it. The women in this scene seem real. They also seem like friends with a long, storied history. Better: the scene is well-written, with a silly confession drinking-game gag that fits in. The actors even seem to step up their game, knowing that they finally have something fun and interesting and real to work with. Then Samantha gets arrested for causing a boner and the film shrieks back into suck territory.
The main message I took away from this movie is that you can solve equal rights issues worldwide with (a) shaky puns, (b), a steady supply of haute couture, and (c) being over-privileged. I also learned that the best way to relax is by putting on your most expensive clothes and sitting sideways on an uncomfortable couch and flipping through a magazine so far away from your face that reading it is likely impossible. I am woman!
The first question has to be: is the movie bad? The answer? I'm not sure. It's not good, that much is obvious. But there are good parts, and that's what's most infuriating.
No. No, wait, I take that back. Most infuriating is that Sex in the City 2 features, as its main character, an unlikable shrew of a woman with whom we are all supposed to relate. This shouldn't be hard, I think. I recall relating to her (mostly) on the TV show. Despite her expensive tastes, she seemed somehow earthy and interesting. A little self-involved, perhaps, but still a formidable main character with whom the audience's sympathies could easily lie.
In Sex In the City 2, Carrie is at turns shrill and unbearable, unreasonable and ridiculous. And she wears this one hat that could almost literally house a small, poor family. Her marriage problems almost border on existential, and in a better movie, that angle could have been played up. Every time she says she enjoys something, even slightly, her husband (Mr. Big) chooses to escalate those enjoyments to an unreasonable point. She likes a couch and he makes it his nest. She likes an old movie on TV, he installs a TV in their bedroom. She takes two days off from him to go write in her old apartment, he institutes it as a weekly occurrence. It's not that these aren't valid concerns a wife might have every right to complain about. Instead, she nags that they don't go out every single night, and eat take-out once in awhile. And she doesn't do it in a way that elicits any sort of sympathy, either: she's like a demanding, cartoon shrew.
The other women fare a little better. Miranda's new boss is a sexist (though the utter lack of any other women in her entire office seems suspect), Samantha's fighting off menopause, and Charlotte is finding out that motherhood is not all about baking cupcakes in vintage clothing. (Roger Ebert makes a note about that in his review; after some thought, I think Charlotte wearing a vintage dress making cupcakes actually fits for the character, trying to literally have it all at once.) These all seem like realistic, albeit heightened, problems - all of which are far, far more interesting than Carrie's. To be fair, though, a time-lapse video of plaster hardening would be far more interesting than Carrie's problems.
When, via some plot mechanations, the girls fly off to Abu Dhabi to "go someplace rich," things really start to skid off the rails. (1) New York City, for these women, IS someplace rich. There's lip service paid to the sagging economy, but it's one of those "show, don't tell" moments authors learn to avoid in, say, 5th grade Comp. (2) This is when the movie decides it has a Theme, and that Theme is Women Are Oppressed the World Over. It's not a bad theme, as themes go, and in a better movie with some smart handling, it can absolutely work. In this movie, womens' consciousness is awakened with the subtlety of a jackhammer on asphalt. During one otherwise okay moment where Our Girls sing "I Am Women" at karaoke, a number of Abu Dhabi women watching in the crowd seem to have a spiritual awakening. Oh wait, they seem to be thinking, those American women are right. I AM woman! It's pandering and insulting, not just to women, but all moviegoers.
(Oh, and speaking of insults to moviegoers: a cardinal rule in filmmaking is that you never, NEVER show clips of better movies in your crappy movie. It's why you don't see anyone watching Citizen Kane in Leprechaun 4. SITC2 has the audacity to not only show bits of It Happened One Night, but also rip off one of its central gags. Does it work? Eh, sort of. But mostly we're reminded that It Happened One Night won the Top 5 Oscars, and that we're still watching Sex In the City 2.)
Okay, so here's how this film is like Grease 2: smack dab in the middle of the movie is a scene that belongs in a better movie. Charlotte and Miranda are talking about motherhood. It's a scene they have to themselves. In it, they're bonding about why motherhood is harder than it seems to be, and why it's okay to admit it. The women in this scene seem real. They also seem like friends with a long, storied history. Better: the scene is well-written, with a silly confession drinking-game gag that fits in. The actors even seem to step up their game, knowing that they finally have something fun and interesting and real to work with. Then Samantha gets arrested for causing a boner and the film shrieks back into suck territory.
The main message I took away from this movie is that you can solve equal rights issues worldwide with (a) shaky puns, (b), a steady supply of haute couture, and (c) being over-privileged. I also learned that the best way to relax is by putting on your most expensive clothes and sitting sideways on an uncomfortable couch and flipping through a magazine so far away from your face that reading it is likely impossible. I am woman!
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