What kind of garbage is this?
By Kenn Tarr
FILM EXECUTIVES ARE BUSY TRUDGING THROUGH garbage heaps just the same as our local homeless population lately.
Directors are close to striking and executives are left in a money pit without the good old friends they enjoy screwing over. The effect of hungry film executives looking to acquire new material must be overwhelming at Sundance this month. In Palm Springs, mostly an international schmaltz-fest, far fewer film execs were on the prowl. The struggle for screenwriters’ rights has cost studios millions lately and all of the back-lots are deserted. Shrewd mavens that they are, on both coasts, many TV and film soundstages are being rented out for storage. It makes one think of 1992’s great Robert Altman satire “The Player” starring Tim Robbins as embattled film exec Griffin Mill. Peter Gallagher’s character Larry Levy takes out a newspaper in one scene and tells the bean-counters to pick a story to turn into a film, proceeding to describe how to formulate every news story into a film. Mill said, “I was just thinking what an interesting idea it is to take the writers out of the filmmaking process, Now if we can only get rid of these writers and directors.” Somewhere out there, perhaps in the mind of Michael Tolkin, there is Mill chuckling at the state of film city.
After digging in the trash for a while they will most likely come up empty.
In light of “Alvin and the Chipmunks” hustling past the $200 million mark, the options for “Marmaduke,” “Family Circle” and “The Smurfs” are likely to be as hot as Mario Puzo was after “The Godfather.”
Edmund Hillary just passed away, and his escapades of hiking Mount Everest are prime for exploitation. Hell, anyone dead is. As bio-pic happy as studios seem to be, there are 1000s of famous personalities past and present without a bio-pic. I write because I fear film could denigrate to “reality movies” rather quickly. You fellows should start writing stories yourselves. It’s really not as hard as it looks. The big secret of this or any strike is that the workers are … replaceable. If they weren’t the strike would have been a blip. Now I don’t know what it is.
Since I can’t properly formulate a 10 best list, I figured I would contribute some sort of year-end awards. For the next two months, awards talk will flood pop culture. Most of the talk will get redundant, and I will go on record with my takes and predictions for the nominations before they are announced. Everything will be muted this year, of course, for the strike, but there will still be plenty of discussion.
With no further delay, the award for the Most Under-Rated Performance this year goes to Richard Gere for “The Hoax.” As a man writing a fake biography of Howard Hughes, Gere made the character believable and his performance was highly-regarded … in April. The character was a very manipulative yet likable and the movie was interesting. I’d like to find out how much is authentic, because most of the Lasse Holstrom film seemed contrived.
For Most Enjoyable Movie, the award goes to “Ratatouille.” I am certain this film doesn’t stand up on repeat-viewing but I bet I still will enjoy it for years to come when my children play the DVD over and over again. Thoroughly engaging, the film was “well-shot,” every image of the film composed as if a cinematographer or set designer actually put it together.
Best Overt Attempt To Jock The Success Of “The Departed” goes to “We Own The Night.” With its ethnic characters, secretly bound by blood and its plot of police corruption and Mafia mechegas, “Night” was a box office failure and came and went in a blur. The Mark Wahlberg-Joaquin Phoenix double-vehicle was well-made and acted but derivative as all hell and wins the award for rigging up a publicity campaign that jocked “The Departed” in every way. When do the executives and advertising department at Columbia go on strike? Every PR push they make is derivative.
For Best Plot Twist, the award goes to “Eastern Promises.” I won’t spoil it.
For Best Uncomfortable Sequence, Nicole Kidman in “Margot at the Wedding” steals this award. Her neurotic, siren-like novelist single mother character was a WASPy misanthrope without a care for anyone else. The give and take with her son in that film, played by Zane Pais, is some of the more interesting film stock of 2007.
For Best Boring Movie, “Michael Clayton.” It was a real snooze-fest. A good movie, but once you see it you understand where I’m coming from. With that aside, Tom Wilkinson’s performance definitely woke me up a couple of times.
Most Annoying Movie is easily clinched by “Hairspray.” Occasionally I wanted to take a walk around town just to stop the insanity.
Best Title, and by best I mean the very worst, goes to “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.”
KEN TARR is a student at Santa Monica College, an actor and writer and is also taller than 99 percent of the population. He telepathically or at
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 12, 2008. Read the original PDF.