Chinese censoring of Cloud Atlas is true truly a real problem.

The news broke yesterday that the Chinese government is censoring Cloud Atlas in advance of its Chinese theatrical exhibition.  That in itself is not a surprise, as the Chinese government has a history of censoring US films.  Usually its a case of material that is deemed insulting/inflammatory/etc. to the Chinese, such as the complete omission of Chow Yun Fat's murderous pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.  Also reported is the fact that Skyfall will run in China with several edits and changes in subtitled dialogue, among other bits omitting a scene where a Chinese nationals are murdered (while Bond sits on his ass and does nothing about it) and changing dialogue involving Javier Bardem's history of being captured and tortured by the Chinese government. Ironically changing Severine from a former child sex slave to merely a member of the mob makes Bond slightly less dick-ish for setting her up for murder, but I digress.  Again, no big deal or at least nothing unusual.  Other countries have different standards of censorship and often change US films when they eventually arrive on respective shores (fun tip: click HERE and do a search for "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles").  

Man of Steel gets its PG-13. Is the high-profile live-action PG-rated film an endangered species?

As of this morning, Zack Snyder's Man of Steel has been awarded a PG-13 for "intense sequences of sci-fi violence, action and destruction, and for some language."  That's not a surprise, as pretty much every major comic book film since Bryan Singer's X-Men has received said rating.  Even if the content seemed more appropriate for the more kid-friendly PG rating, such as I'd argue was the case with Fantastic Four and Thor, studios don't want the potential kiddie-flick stigma that's still somewhat attached to live-action PG-rated films.  Unless you're dealing with fantasy that's somewhat aimed at families, such as The Chronicles of Narnia or four of the eight Harry Potter films, or high-brow family adventures like Hugo or The Life of Pi), it's PG-13 or bust. Part of that is the way in which Shrek turned the PG rating into an acceptable 'for all rages' status for animated films back in 2001.  Part of that is merely the fact that getting a PG-13 doesn't seem to be making parents think twice about bringing their very young children to the likes of Transformers: Dark of the Moon or Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.  

Skyfall has crossed $300 million domestic! A closer look sees James Bond near the top of the action-film record books.

Sony is reporting that Skyfall grossed $260,000 yesterday, which was just enough to put its domestic total over the magic $300 million mark.  Putting that in perspective, this means that Skyfall has nearly doubled the previous domestic-best gross of the 007 series, the $168 million grossing Quantum of Solace and the $167 million-grossing Casino Royale.  Now that it's theatrical run is pretty much finished (it's got $5 million left in the tank, at the absolutely most), let's look at how it did in the grand scheme of things.  Even when adjusted for inflation, the film is the third-biggest domestic earner in the series, surpassing the adjusted-$279 million gross of You Only Live Twice ($43 million in real 1967 dollars) and hanging out below only the $515 million-grossing Goldfinger ($51 million in 1964) and the $585 million-grossing Thunderball ($65 million in 1965). It's the biggest-grossing spy film of all time and the highest-grossing non-fantasy action film of all-time.  Even when playing the inflation card, it's the sixth biggest spy movie ever, behind the aforementioned 60's 007 films, Mission: Impossible II ($310 million adjusted gross/$215 million actual gross) Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me ($315m/$205m), and the first Mission: Impossible ($318m/$181m).  If you factor in pretty much every remotely recent non-fantastical/non superhero action franchise, it still ends up with more tickets sold than all but the likes of Beverly Hills Cop ($522m/$234m), Rambo: First Blood Part II ($329m/$150m),  Rush Hour 2 ($310m/$226m), and Beverly Hills Cop II ($305m/$153m).  

Love the sinner, hate the sin: Films I like or love despite finding them morally or ideologically objectionable.

Let's pretend for a moment that Zero Dark Thirty does in fact do all of the things that its critics, many of whom have not even seen the film, are claiming.  Let's pretend that it endorses torture on a practical and/or moral level.  Let's pretend that it implies/states that information gleaned from torture was essential in catching Osama Bin Laden and would not have been discovered any other way.  Does that (incorrect, I'd argue) interpretation automatically negate its worth as quality film making?  There has been much discussion of the alleged morality of Bigelow and Boal's superb procedural, much of it penned by those who believe that either it is 'pro-torture' or at least will be interpreted as much by general moviegoers (a classic case of 'I'm smart enough to understand but they aren't').  The question for those critics becomes whether its alleged sins negates its worth and/or can be separated from its qualities as a film.  But quite frankly, it's more than possible to enjoy a film while disagreeing with its opinions or moral worldview.  In fact, this whole thing started with David Edelstein picking the film as his favorite of 2012 while also calling it morally reprehensible.With that in mind, without endorsing any of the somewhat simplistic ( in my opinion wrongheaded) views of Zero Dark Thirty, I thought this would be a good time to discuss a few films that I happen to like and/or love despite being vehemently opposed to their respective ideologies. Spoilers ahoy!

2012 in Film: The Overrated...

I wrestled with even doing an 'overrated' list this year.  First of all, the very idea of such a list is to merely tell other critics and/or the masses that they are dead-wrong for liking something, which I'd argue is very different from telling someone they're wrong for disliking something.  Second of all, the Internet has become such a vast land of film criticism that few films completely escape the wrath of critical scrutiny even if the popular consensus happens to lean in the "wrong" direction.  Nonetheless, in the end I enjoy writing about the year in film, so far be it for me to cheat myself out of some arbitrary concern for maintaining the proverbial higher ground.  So, in alphabetical order as always, let's dive right in...

Brave (review/guest essay):
Had this not been Pixar's first animated feature with a female lead, had this not been marketed within the context that Princess Merida was a kind of sword-wielding/bow-clutching warrior, the the film would have been seen for what it is: a deeply problematic character drama that ignores the icky realities at the center of its tale in order to tell an audience-reassuring mother/daughter story.  The film basically tells the same character arc as The Little Mermaid but was declared a feminist milestone because the female lead A) carried a weapon and B) didn't want to get married.  But good intentions cannot get past a story line that treats mother and daughter as equally culpable even when one party is advocating forced marriage.  Make no mistake, say what you will about 'customs of the time' or 'arranged marriage versus forced marriage', the film tells a story of a child who doesn't want to get married to (and yes, have sex with) a man she doesn't know and treats it like a minor inconvenience.  There is a clear right and wrong here, but the film absolves the father of any responsibility while basically stating that the mother (who again, wants her daughter to have sex against her will) kinda-sorta has a point and that the daughter really needs to have empathy for her dear-old mum.

Blu Ray Review: The Dark Knight Returns Part I (2012) delivers a solid, engaging adaptation of its iconic source material.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns part I

2012
76 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

I don't know if an animated adaptation of Frank Miller's groundbreaking satire was entirely necessary.  There is little ground in this 1986 graphic novel that hasn't been covered in other mediums or other comic book stories in some form or another, be it The Dark Knight Rises or the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Legends of the Dark Knight".  At heart, this project seems predicated merely on the idea of 'well, we might as well adapt it because we've adapted Batman: Year One.  But this new film, which covers the first two chapters of the four part story, is a genuine improvement over the prior Frank Miller adaptation.  It is less beholden to the source material and willing to make small changes for the sake of the film as a stand-alone entertainment.  The script is 90% faithful to the original, and the changes have an unusual effect of making the story feel less like an Elseworld (which it of course was) and more like a somewhat plausible 'What If?' final Batman story.

Weekend Box Office: The Possession tops strong, Lawless opens so-so and Oogieloves bomb epically.

So it looks like Lionsgate's attempt to mimic the marketing campaign of their 2009 chiller The Haunting In Connecticut worked like a charm.  That (rather terrific, natch) horror drama used a single horrifying image (weird liquid supernatural gunk flying out of a child's mouth) to help snag a mighty $23 million debut in Spring 2009.  Back then, it was Lionsgate's second-biggest debut not involving a Saw sequel or a Tyler Perry film.  Today it still stands in fifth place on that scale, and The Possession just proves lightning can strike twice.  The poster focused on basically the same image and basically had the same opening weekend, grossing an estimated $17.7 million over Fri-Sun and $21 million over the four-day Labor Day holiday.  That's the second-biggest Labor Day haul on record, behind the $30 million gross of Rob Zombie's Halloween in 2007, ahead of The Transporter 2's $20 million gross in 2005 and ahead of Jeepers Creepers 2 ($18 million) in 2003 .  In terms of non-sequels/remakes, it's by far the biggest such debut, besting The American ($16 million), Jeepers Creepers ($15 million), and the obscenely underrated Balls of Fury ($14 million).

2012 Summer Movie wrap-up: The Avengers and the art house save an otherwise mediocre summer movie season.

This is actually a pretty simple summer movie season to analyze and/or dissect.  In short, the expected mega-blockbusters were indeed mostly mega-blockbusters, the expected middle-of-the-road hits were just that, while the films pegged most likely to flop or at least financially disappoint did just that.   If you had polled pundits at the beginning of the summer over the top four films of summer 2012, you they probably would have told you some combination of The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Brave.  And three of those films did pretty much what should have been realistically expected of them.  The core artistic pattern of summer 2012 was pretty simple: Most of the mainstream entries, even the ones expected to soar, ended up being artistically disappointing while the indie scene was on fire all season long.  Speaking financially, audiences embraced most of the major art-house films while being just a little pickier when it came to mainstream fare.  But the biggest news of summer 2012 was the general success of old-school movies, as a number of original properties and/or star vehicles proved quite profitable.  I've written extensively elsewhere about the slow and steady return of the 'movie' so I won't dwell on that here (essay and essay).  But when Magic Mike is a smash hit while a Total Recall remake is a money loser, one hopes that the studios will take note and perhaps learn a lesson different than "Let's make a sequel to Magic Mike!".

When the title of your superhero sequel is a giant spoiler...

There is a reason why Chris Nolan didn't call his last Batman film The Dark Knight Returns in No Man's Land During Knightfall.  The Dark Knight Rises may have felt like a painfully generic title thought up during a 7am brainstorming session, but it kept a certain amount of mystery alive in regards to what the movie was about.  With the next wave of Marvel comic book sequels, we're also seeing something new and arguably interesting.  Instead of numerically-titled sequels (Spider-Man 2) or even somewhat generic subtitles (X-Men: The Last Stand), we're seeing sequels that are explicitly telling you what they are going to be about by virtue of their title.  By which I mean they are being named after specific comic book story arcs.  Now fans may be thrilled about seeing their favorite arcs adapted to the silver screen, but the very title is a giant spoiler.  If you've read the arc in question, you pretty much know exactly what's the movie is going to be about.

How a severe lack of 'cause and effect' undoes all that is good about The Dark Knight Rises, and why its alleged political underpinnings are merely a smokescreen.

It's not the plot holes or periodically silly coincidences.  This will not be a list of 'things that don't work in The Dark Knight Rises' but rather an old-fashioned essay (shocker!) concerning what I feel are the overall screenwriting flaws that tear down and ultimately destroy what otherwise is a technically fine motion picture.  Obviously it's pure unapologetic spoilers after the jump, so tread no further if you don't want to know.  But the short version is that, aside from certain logic issues, almost nothing that occurs during the first 150 minutes of the film truly matters in regards to how the story ends.  And moreover, the unwillingness to focus on the people actually being affected by the (mostly off screen) chaos renders the film's token topicality not only politically irrelevant but dangerously close to exploitation.  To wit...

Weekend Box Office: Seemingly affected by frontloaded anticipation more than tragedy, The Dark Knight Rises opens with $160 million, good for third-best debut ever.

When a heavily-anticipated film debuts alongside a mass murder that takes place during a midnight showing of said film, it's difficult to know how to analyze the opening weekend figures.  Under normal circumstances, the fact that The Dark Knight Rises (trailer/review/spoiler thread) debuted with $160 million over the weekend would lend itself to the usual analysis, dealing with weekend multipliers, midnight-percentages, comparisons to The Dark Knight and other recent blockbusters, and a guesstimate in regards to final domestic outcome.  But it is impossible for now to know what the effect of the shooting had on the film's short term or long term box office performance. So for the sake of this calculation, we will basically presume that the shooting had little quantifiable effect on the numbers.  Quite frankly, looking over the data, I'm inclined to believe as much.  The film did about as well, give-or-take, as it would have been expected to do.  But the numbers, presuming little-to-no effect from Friday morning's tragedy, means that the third Chris Nolan Batman film was a slightly less anticipated affair than the last go-around, which will likely bode (comparatively) ill for long-term grosses.  Basically, horror of horrors, The Dark Knight Rises might just perform like a normal quick-kill mega-blockbuster.

The Dark Knight Rises spoiler discussion thread...

So it's midnight on the West Coast, which means the first midnight showings are just letting out on the East Coast.  Okay, you know the drill.  Here's hoping I have more comments here than I did for The Amazing Spider-Man.  Anyway, I'm actually going to be away from my keyboard for a couple days, but I'll *try* to do a weekend box office write-up on Sunday morning.  Until then, it's officially open season for anyone who saw the third and final Chris Nolan Batman film.  You've heard my thoughts, now time to share yours, in as much detail as you desire.

Scott Mendelson

Review: The Dark Knight Rises (2012) is the least of the Nolan Bat-films, continuing the curse of the comic book threequels.

The Dark Knight Rises

2012
165 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson


First and foremost, I cannot decide at the moment if The Dark Knight Rises (trailer) is a 'better film' than Spider-Man 3, Batman Forever, and/or X-Men: The Last Stand.  The fact that I have to outright state as much should tell you what a comparative disappointment this film is.  Overall, its many storytelling flaws bring the picture down, offering only engaging acting, entertaining character interaction, and the kind of empty-headed (but oft impressive) action spectacle associated with more conventional blockbusters.  It is a hodgepodge of several classic Batman stories squished into one chaotic narrative that ends up resembling a mash-up of Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Rocky III. There are moments of emotional engagement in the first third and the final moments pack an appropriate wallop.  But the film frankly drags for much of its middle 90 minutes on its way to a surprisingly unremarkable climax.  Save for mostly fine performances, including a terrific supporting turn by Anne Hathaway, and some wonderful character beats scattered throughout, this is sadly the very definition of an unnecessary sequel.

23 years of Batman trailers, all in one spot...

Purely for fun, here is pretty much every single theatrical trailer for every single modern-day live-action Batman film, from Tim Burton's Batman way back in 1989 to the one I'm seeing tonight.  Do enjoy, and feel free to add your own qualitative rankings.

Scott Mendelson

Weekend Box Office: Ice Age 4 tops with $46 million, Amazing Spider-man crosses $200 million, Ted crosses $150 million.

It was the calm before the storm, with only one new wide release daring to debut the weekend before The Dark Knight Rises crushes everything in sight.  That new release is 20th Century Fox's Ice Age: Continental Drift (essay).  So it is with little surprise that the fourth entry in Fox's animation crown jewel, sadly the first terrible entry of the previously 'not bad' series thus far, was number one this weekend, nor is it little surprise that it debuted with an estimated $46 million.  That's a little low all things considered, but Fox couldn't give two craps about domestic gross anyway.  None of the prior three Ice Age films have ever topped $200 million domestic, but that didn't stop Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs from exploding overseas three summers ago and earning $690 million overseas for a $886 million worldwide total, good for the third-highest grossing overseas total ever at the time (it's eighth today) and still the most lopsided foreign grosses (77%) for any movie grossing over $775 million total (removing European films like The Full Monty, European-targeted titles like The Adventures of Tintin, or Miyazaki releases, it's still #7 overall).  So yeah, this new film opened with "just $45 million".  Gasp(!), that's below the $68 million debut of Ice Age: The Meltdown in 2006 ($82 million adjusted for inflation) and the $66 million Wed-Sun debut of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs ($41 million Fri-Sun), and right in line with the $46 million debut of Ice Age ($62 million adjusted for inflation). Despite the 3D bump (which the third film enjoyed as well), this fourth Ice Age film may struggle to top $150 million, putting it well below Ice Age ($176 million), Ice Age 2 ($195 million), and Ice Age 3 ($196 million).  Oh well, it was already at $225 million overseas before it even opened in America, and it's at $385 million today with at least a $600-700 million worldwide total for the (comparatively cheap) $100 million animated feature.  This is one franchise were America just doesn't matter. 

Zack Snyder's Man of Steel gets a teaser poster.

Zack Snyder's Superman reboot, Man of Steel, just premiered its teaser trailer at Comic Con and the reviews are mostly positive, with the somber, large-scale drama being compared to Terrence Malick.  Since the teaser premiering with The Dark Knight Rises is said to be pretty similar to what the SDCC attendees saw about an hour ago, I'll refrain from commentary until I can post the actual teaser (I'm hoping-against-hope that Warner screens said teaser before my Tuesday night Dark Knight Rises IMAX press screening). So yeah, here's the dark and moody poster.  Looks fine to me, but it's just a poster and we'll know more once we all get to see whatever it was that set Comic Con aflame.

Scott Mendelson

The Dark Knight Rises gets one last (?) IMAX poster...

We're two weeks until this thing opens, so it's the final leg of the marketing lap.  I've personally wondered why Warner Bros and/or IMAX is even bothering at this point.  Is there really anyone who isn't sure if they want to see the film at this time, someone who might be swayed by a billboard or a bus station poster (or yet another television spot)?  I'm not a huge fan of this poster (it's visually intriguing but feels very cut-and-paste-ish), although I'm glad it once again has Batman front-and-center, as opposed to the odd Dark Knight posters which were visually richer but with odd artistic choices (a giant wheel being the center of focus, Batman posed like he just blew up a building, etc.).  Anyway, if the screening schedule follows suit to four years ago, there is a chance I may get to see this in just under a week, although more likely I'll be waiting for the conventional All-Media.  No matter, but since I'm going to be out of town the weekend it opens, I'm going to be very sad if I don't get an invite to a press screening.  Come what may, The Dark Knight Rises opens on July 20th.  As always, we'll see.  We'll *all* see.

Scott Mendelson

Guest Essay: Merrill Barr explains why Comic-Con is a better marketing tool for television than it is for movies.

From time to time, Mendelson's Memos is able to present reviews and/or essays from guest writers, as is the case this afternoon. Merrill Barr is a frequent analyzer and reviewer of television for both blogs and podcasts. A former contributor to FilmSchoolRejects.com, he currently runs the television podcasts The Idiot Boxers and Operation: Nikita for FatGuysAtTheMovies.com and occasionally provides written reviews for DarkMediaOnline.com. He can be found on twitter (@sonic43), Facebook (facebook.com/merrilljbarr) and Tumblr (TheIdiotsBox.com). He can also be contacted via email at TheIdiotBoxers@gmail.com. Please enjoy, share, and comment.

Four years ago, when it came to movie hype, there was no greater combination of studio marketing and rabid fandom than Comic-Con. Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Green Lantern, Twilight, Captain America, Piranha 3D, Avatar, Scott Pilgrim, Cowboys & Aliens, The Avengers, if your movie had even a sliver of nerdy potential (and sometimes not at all [Salt]) you went to the annual San Diego Comic Book Convention, better known as just 'Comic-Con'.  But that mentality is shifting in movie land.  The downside to a massive marketing push like Comic-Con is – and let’s not beat around the bush, that it is all marketing. Really cool, sometimes clever and intelligent marketing, but marketing none the less – is that there needs to be results. The problem is that it’s hard to differentiate the impact of Comic-Con vs. every other piece of marketing inside the box office because of one thing… Time.  

Actors Against Acting Athletes with Gary Oldman...

I'm not sure how big of a problem this is offhand (Space Jam was sixteen years ago and Michael Jordan wasn't half-bad playing himself, while Steel was fifteen years ago this summer) but this is utterly wonderful anyway.  At the very least, it's a fun thing to see Gary Oldman actually speaking in his own voice for a change.  And he doesn't even die at the end!  Now I want to see the Morgan Freeman version.

Scott Mendelson

Watch/Discuss: The Dark Knight Rises panders to the 'I want it now!' crowd, gets one more (generic) trailer.

This smells desperate, folks.  With just a month to go, Warner Bros. drops a third full-length trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. This bothers me on two levels, neither of which are related to the film itself (the film is what it is and we'll know soon enough).  First, the near-daily stream of television spots, some of which are quite spoiler-y, followed by a release of a third trailer, reeks of desperation.  Not about the film per-se, but about the apparent need to stay relevant on the film blogs (which in theory translates into mainstream interest by playing the 'show them everything 30-120 seconds at a time' game that has been the status-quo this year for tentpoles.  Next I assume Warner Bros. will start releasing clips to boot.  Point being, they don't need to play in the mud with everyone else.  The Dark Knight Rises would have been a mega-smash if they didn't realize anything other than a teaser and a one-sheet.  To see the marketing department unwilling to follow their own pitch-perfect template from The Dark Knight is not a little dispiriting, akin to Michael Jackson's later albums not breaking new ground but rather aping the younger musicians who followed in his footsteps in a bid to stay relevant.  This new trailer represents a lack of faith and I'm disappointed.   My second gripe is with the trailer itself.