Dewey, Truman, introductions
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Dec14

ALPHA MALE

December 14th, 2005 | by Tom
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(6 votes, average: 7.83 out of 10)

Is Dewey as sweet and cuddly as he appears? Maybe not…

I don’t know if today’s comic is as funny as it could be on it’s own, but it establishes the direction of the arc. I think you guys will like what I have in store for Dewey in the next couple of days.

If you’re not on board with this one, well, too bad. I’ve been sick since about 11:00 Monday. Throwing up. Multiple bathroom trips. Chills. Fever. The works. I actually took a sick day from work to recouperate. I NEVER do that. I didn’t start feeling better until about 4:00 yesterday afternoon, but my head was still too foggy to come up with anything complex. Oh, well. It’s the destination, not the journey, right? Or have I mixed that up again?

King Kong comes out today. Don’t know if Cami and I will be able to make it out tonight to see it. I know I have some catching up to do on some other household duties since I was out of commission for the last two days. Namely, the two to four inches of snow that dropped on us last night. The driveway won’t shovel itself!

I’m happy to see that Kong is getting mostly positive reviews. In some cases raves! I don’t know why, but for the longest time, it seemed like some of the bigger critics and box office handicappers had it out for this movie to fail. Something about the bloated $200 plus budget, the fact that Peter Jackson’s movie is almost a full hour longer than the original and some even arguing that a remake need not be made at all.

I can see the argument on that last point. Especially when you factor in Gus Van Sant’s shot-by-shot remake of Psycho from a few years back. But by-in-large, I think the nay-sayers wanted to see a little cosmic comeuppance befall Jackson after he won Best Picture and Best Director for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. I mean, I think we can all be honest and say that was a "gold watch" in terms of being rewarded. I don’t know if it was the better picture when stacked up against Mystic River. It certainly wasn’t the best of the three films in the Lord of the Rings trillogy – not with all those tacked on endings. It was pretty much a way for the Academy to say "Good job on doing these three huge films back-to-back-to-back, have them be profitable and not killing yourself. Take this home and put it on your mantle."

That said, I’m glad the nay-sayers are wrong. I’ve been a Jackson fan since Meet the Feebles and really got a kick out of the underated The Frighteners. I think Kong will go a long way toward solidifying his reputation as this generation’s go-to guy for the all-out "big entertainment" blockbuster. A Spielberg replacement, perhaps? Just a thought.

Sorry I don’t have much more to say. I’m blaming the illness and will leave it at that. Hopefully I’ll be a little more sharp on Friday. See you then!
 

↓ Transcript
Truman? This is Dewey. He's a new additional to the family. I want you to be nice to him.

Grr...

OOK! OOK! EEK! AH!

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SICK DAZE

December 14th, 2005 | by Tom
Posted In: Blog

I’ll say this for being sick; It sure gives you the time to catch up on a bunch of movies.

I had something flu-like on Monday. So after sweating it out Monday night, I stayed home from work on Tuesday. I ended up watching The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, The Naked Gun 2 and 1/2: The Smell of Fear, The Lonely Guy and Goodfellas (because it just happened to be on).

I can say without doubt that the first Naked Gun is probably one of my favorite comedies, but that I hadn’t seen the second in a long time and I kind of remember why. Despite the addition of Robert Goulet, it’s vastly inferior. Not just in terms of the humor, which feels a little overdone. But there are huge plot holes in the thing! In my opinion, some of the best humor evolves from the characters being placed in a totally absurd situation and reacting to it with complete seriousness. That’s why the first Naked Gun movie is hilarious and also why the first Airplane! movie is hilarious. Leslie Nielson and that deep baratone of his adds the perfect amount of weight to ridiculous lines like "It’s true what they say. Cops and women don’t mix. It’s like eating a spoonful of Drano; Sure it’ll clean you out, but it’ll leave you hollow inside!" That’s why it’s such a shame he’s started wasting his talent in stuff like Mr. Magoo and Spy Hard in the late 90’s. Those movies were just flat-out stupid.

Moving on… The Lonely Guy. I’ve been on a Steve Martin kick ever since watching Shopgirl a few months ago. I have no plans, however, to endure Cheaper By The Dozen 2 when it comes out this month.

Instead, I’ve been combing through his back catalog. I already owned Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid and it’s one of my favorite movies. Actually, Jared turned me onto that one years ago. We think it’s brilliant. But I picked up The Lonely Guy only partially remembering it from the times it’s been on basic cable. It was pretty funny. Cute. It’s kind of dated though. It suffers pretty heavily from the 80’s flavored synth soundtrack. It makes me wonder if the movies we’re watching now we’re going to look back on in 20 years and go "Ugh! What was up with the music back then?"

I don’t know what it was about movies from the 80’s, but very few of them seem to have a timeless quality about them. I’m sure you can say the same thing about any era, really. The movies that ARE timeless are certainly in the minioirty compared the majority of crap that comes out of most major studios. I suppose that’s why their timeless, but still…

And finally, Goodfellas… I caught it on HBO. To me, Goodfella’s is one of those movies that I will stop whatever I’m doing to watch. It’s so arresting, you can’t really turn away from it. I think that’s a big accomplisment. Especially after nearly 15 years. An even bigger accomplishment if the movie is on television. You know how it goes. You’re at home, watching TV, some movie comes across your radar. You think, "Oh, that’s interesting." and you watch it for 15 minutes or so before going back to channel surfing. Not Goodfellas. It comes on and I forget I even have a remote. Man, what a great movie. I’m still seeing helicopters.

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PREDICTABLE

December 16th, 2005 | by Tom
Posted In: Blog

Reflecting on King Kong’s box office "failure" on Wednesday got me thinking about this noise I’ve been hearing about a software program that can predict a movie’s success. Have you guys heard of this?

Apparently, some egghead at Oklahoma State University wrote a software program that can predict whether or not the next Hollywood turd-burger is going to be hit by applying seven criteria to each movie and averaging them out – rating by censors, competition from other films at the time of release, strength of the cast (or Star Pow-ah!), genre, special effects, whether it is a sequel and the number of theaters it opens in.

Using a "neural network" (shades of Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, here) to process the results, films are placed in nine categories. A "flop" meaning less than $1 million at the box office. A "blockbuster" meaning more than $200.

The study proved that 37% of the time, the network accurately predicted which category a film fell into. 75% of the time it was within one category of the correct answer. Spider-Man and Shrek were correctly identified as blockbusters. Waking Up In Reno and Running Free were pegged as flops. I guess it must be right, because I’ve never heard of either of those last two movies.

Professor Ramesh Sharda has been working on the program for over seven years and has analyzed more than 800 films before publishing a paper appearing in the journal Expert Systems With Applications, set to be published in February 2006.

Naturally Sharda is already in discussions with a "major Hollywood studio" (he wouldn’t say which one) to further refine the system to improve its accuracy.

I think any movie fan with a heart and a mind knows that this specific leap in technology can only mean bad things for audiences. Clearly Sharda is someone who actually HATES movies and doesn’t want you to have a good time spending your entertainment dollar. Apparently he believes your discretionary income should go to more college scholarships. Or perhaps the athletic program. GO OSU, COWBOYS!

A program like this could turn movie marketing on its ear. Think about all the little brain trusts studios currently hire to handicap the success of a film. It’s understandable to a degree. Studios and producers make increasingly larger investments. They want to protect those investments. But by using the criteria outlined in Sharda’s program, Hollywood money-handlers could potentially deep six a movie before even one roll of film is shot. If our good friend H.A.L. doesn’t think your movie has enough star power, you’re done. Too much potential competition at the time of your film’s release? We’ll bury it in September.

Film’s are already being treated more like disposable product and less like art. I’m not taking the shallow view on this. I know that as long as there has been entertainment, there are pictures out there that will be treated as such – nothing more than a mild diversion.

But at the same time, would a movie like Apocalypse, Now or even Citzen Kane be made today with all the market research and bottom-line thinking that seems to have poisioned the industry? Films for adults are dumbed down to PG-13 so studios can reach further into the pockets of teens with disposable income. Potentially great films are rushed into theaters prematurely without much care because, "Hey, we can always make it up on the back-end with DVD sales!"

A program like this will continue to shift the balance away from thoughful expression and more toward commerce. The two can exist side-by-side if given room to flourish, but that doesn’t seem to be the industry focus anymore. Movies will end up looking more and more alike. Celebrity status rather than good stories will play a larger factor into what films get made. There will be less films for adults who are seeking serious and intelligent options and the overall artistry of cinema gets dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Culture evaporates and America continues to earn its stripes as the home of dum-dum entertainment and overweight popcorn jockeys.

People wonder how films like Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo can continue to be made. It’s seeds like Sharda’s program that force us to reap the harvest of mediocrity.

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