Cinematical

Indie Roundup reviews the past week of news from the independent film community and provides a peek at what's coming soon.

Opening. Two films opened yesterday which couldn't have less in common: Agnès Varda's essay film The Beaches of Agnès and Nia Vardalos' I Hate Valentine's Day. Tomorrow comes Anne Fontaine's comedy The Girl From Monaco.

Deals. Xavier Dolan's family drama I Killed My Mother, Kenneth Branagh's The Magic Flute, and Asghar Farhadi's drama About Elly have all been acquired by Here Films, the company formerly known as Regent Releasing. All three are headed for theaters next year. [indieWIRE]

Online Viewing. The 4th of July weekend inevitably brings thoughts of America as a land of immigrants, and that's the topic of Home, which debuts on Amazon VOD this week, featuring interviews with Mike Myers, Alfred Molina, and Liam Neeson. Also somewhat topical: if Michael Jackson had an impact on race in pop music, what about African-American musicians playing rock 'n' roll exclusively? Raymond Gayle's Electric Purgatory examines the issue (at iTunes). If you're looking for love, you have something in common with two women in the comedy/drama Arranged (also at iTunes.)

Box Office. Kathryn Bigelow's lacerating bomb squad thriller The Hurt Locker earned a per-screen average ($36,338) that bested even the giant robots, albeit on only four screens. Woody Allen's Whatever Works expanded to 35 screens and grossed $10,280 per outing. The combination of star Michelle Pfeiffer and director Stephen Frears could stir up only a tepid $5,338 per-screen at 76 locations for Cheri, which is less than the average for Duncan Jones' Moon in its third week on 21 screens. [Box Office Mojo.]

After the jump: David Hudson's The Daily takes a permanent (?) vacation, portending the end of the world as we know it.

Set the bar low enough, and it can only be exceeded. That's how I feel about the upcoming big-screen version of The A-Team, a 80s television series entirely beholden to the staid formula of the day and ripe for reinvention. I didn't hate the series so much as I found it routinely mediocre. My colleague Monika Bartyzel loved the series as a kid, yet still questioned the casting choices that were being entertained: Liam Neeson as Hannibal? Bradley Cooper as Face? Adding fuel to the fire, rapper The Game is being considered to play the role of B.A. Baracus, according to blackfilm.com, which quotes "a very highly reliable source in the entertainment industry."

For me, the only thing that made The A-Team watchable was the bantering between the characters, and the choices so far all indicate that director Joe Carnahan is aiming for a more straightforward action picture, based on a script by Wanted's Michael Brandt and Derek Haas. Which is crazy, like moving Miami Vice to Seattle or transforming the lead character in Get Smart into a fairly bland, somewhat competent secret agent. (Even though the latter still made money.)

The mistake would be in confusing brand recognition with brand loyalty. If you're promising fans of the TV show that you're going to deliver the same thing, only bigger and better, then you damn well better deliver something in the same spirit. I haven't seen The Game's work as an actor (Waist Deep, Street Kings) yet; is he any good? If this rumor is true, could he wear the mohawk of the immortal Mr. T?

The title may be generic, but the cast is not. Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman, and Faizon Love accompany their significant others -- Malin Akerman, Kristen Davis, Kristen Bell, and Tasha Smith -- on a vacation to paradise in Couples Retreat. There is a catch, however: intensive sessions of relationship therapy are mandatory and counselor Jean Reno doesn't take "no" for an answer. The first trailer is up at the Fruit Factory (AKA Apple.)

While there's a degree of over-familiarity with the basic premise, the trailer is very promising, edging into the naughty side of PG-13. (According to Erik Davis' post on the movie last year, that's the rating they're aiming for.) Bateman and Bell make for a good, edgy couple of Type A-personalities on the brink on break-up who ask three other couples to come along on their retreat to save money. Old friends Vaughn and Favreau have great chemistry, of course, and have worked with Bateman before. I'm not a huge fan of Akerman or Davis -- they're both lovely and have bright personalities but not a lot of comic snap. Seeing Reno as a buff instructor makes me giggle. Favreau wrote the script, based on an idea by Vaughn, and another old pal, Peter Billingsley, makes his directorial debut.

Couples Retreat is heading for release on October 9, a crowded date on the release schedule: The Informant (drama), Night of the Demons (horror), Whip It (comedy), and Zombieland (horror comedy) are also due out that day. Does the concept or the cast -- or the trailer -- grab you?

Are you psyched to see Captain Jack Sparrow as a real-life gangster? Johnny Depp plays an infamous criminal in Michael Mann's Public Enemies, which opens tomorrow. But in a world where giant robots draw huge crowds, "do audiences want to see Depp as a fairly realistic, non-fantasy version of Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger?"

That's the question asked by Anne Thompson, a veteran industry analyst. She describes the movie as only "fitfully engaging ... often flat as a pancake." She says that Michael Mann's "biggest misstep here is the same as the Wachowskis with Speed Racer. His pursuit of what interests him formally may leave audiences behind." Like David Fincher's Zodiac and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Mann's own Collateral and Miami Vice, Public Enemies was shot on high-definition video. Thompson claims: "When moviegoers watch a period film, no matter how authentically recreated, they aren't expecting it to look like this. There's something jarring about the way Public Enemies shoves us into the past."

I don't know about you, but I could use a good shove now and again. I've enjoyed Mann's last two films, and the trailers for Public Enemies have done a good job of whetting my appetite. The cast, including Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, and Billy Crudup, looks solid. I don't have any preconception about how period films should look -- I want a good, well-told story with interesting characters. How about you? Do you have certain expectations about how films set in the past should look? Do you want to see Johnny Depp as a "fairly-realistic, non-fantasy" bank robber?

"Slim pickings" is the best way to describe this week's releases. Isn't anyone planning to stay home and watch DVDs?

Two Lovers
Joaquin Phoenix can't decide between Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw. Directed by James Gray, this suffocating drama is dark, thoughtful, and "more true to real human existence than most of the dreck that comes out of Hollywood studios," wrote Kim Voynar. I wasn't quite as impressed by it as she was, but it's still my top pick in a slow week. Also on Blu-ray. Rent it.

12 Rounds
Wrestler John Cena stars in Renny Harlin's latest train wreck (as I described it in my review), a sober drama that resolutely refuses to embrace its loonier plot elements (fire engine smashing through New Orleans, an out-of-control street car). Aidan Gillen (The Wire) provides one of the few pleasures as an exceptionally-nasty master criminal. Also on Blu-ray. The "Extreme Cut" adds less than three minutes of footage. Skip it.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li
I was hoping against hope that this might provide some cheesy fun, but Nick Schager slammed that door shut: "Fighting sequences are dreadfully lethargic ... their choreography is of a dull, unimaginative sort." Not even Kristin Kreuk can save this one. Also on Blu-ray. Skip it.

Also out: Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience.

After the jump: "Indies on DVD" provides several good rental choices, a landmark film by Spike Lee hits Blu-ray, and a long-dismissed effort by director Hal Ashby gets dusted off.

The numbers are in. Moviegoers worldwide voted with their hard-earned dollars (and euros and other monetary currencies) and elected to go see Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Box office receipts placed the sequel at the top of this year's heap o' blockbusters, and by the time all is said and done, the film could rank among the top box office earners of all time. But why did so many people go buy tickets? Why did you?

As pointed out by Eugene Novikov, Transformers 2 "received the most hysterically negative reviews of 2009." Only 21% of reviews by critics at Rotten Tomatoes were positive. (Surprisingly, it fared better at the pickier MetaCritic, with 36% positive.) Eugene acknowledged that it's the kind of movie that defines "critic-proof." So, obviously, critical opinion had no bearing on the box office. Why did this movie hit so big? In his analysis, industry observer David Poland felt that producer Don Murphy and director Michael Bay should be celebrated, the former "for truly believing in this concept being a big home run" and the latter "for understanding the images that will draw massive numbers of people based on 2 minutes or less of images." So was it all about the concept and the trailers?

Marketing obviously plays a huge role in determining how a movie opens, as does, to a somewhat lesser extent, the cast and director. But what was it about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that pushed your button(s), elevating it to "must see" status? Take our poll and let us know!

If it's not trailers, it's teasers; if it's not teasers; it's images. By the time a blockbuster finally arrives, if you haven't heard so much about it that you want to scream -- from overload or delight -- the studio's marketing team hasn't done their job. But how early is too early to begin promoting a movie?

Pointing to this week's release of a teaser trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, more than a year in advance of its planned theatrical roll-out in July 2010, The Big Money wonders if that's a good strategy: "How do you keep interest high then over the long autumn, winter, and spring? By producing trailer after trailer? Hollywood will watch this strategy closely to see at what point trailer fatigue sets in or whether it needs to build interest even earlier in its expensive summer blockbusters." Of course, as io9 observed, this isn't a new strategy; The Incredibles got teased 18 months in advance and Star Trek 16 months early (due in part to a release delay). Watchmen tried a different strategy that seemed to work, releasing behind the scenes clips (or "video journals") each month in the year leading up to its theatrical debut.

How do you pique interest and build awareness without potential viewers feeling like the movie's being jammed down their throats? Is it better to wait until closer to the release date? Are too many trailers and other advance promotional devices causing you to suffer from "trailer fatigue"? How early do you want to start seeing teasers and trailers?

How faithful should film adaptations be? The issue arises both with novels and with films that are remade: fans of the original are none-too-pleased to see the personality of beloved characters changed, settings or time periods moved, or -- horror of horrors! -- the ending changed. Watchmen ignited a mini-firestorm with the decision to alter the ending of the original graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. On a somewhat smaller scale, faithful readers of Jodi Picoult's novel My Sister's Keeper are upset that the ending was changed for Nick Cassavetes' just-released movie version.

Author Picoult disclaims responsibility while trying to be diplomatic. "Yes, I know the ending is different," she writes on her official site. "Yes, I know some of you are very upset. I didn't change it. The author has no control over the movie, and it was hard for me to accept too. However, there's a great deal in the movie that I think is great, and I enjoyed watching it - and I hope you did too." She suggests that her fans let Warner Brothers know how they feel. As a point of interest, four out of five comments on my review for Cinematical have complained about the ending.

It seems foolish to try and establish a hard-and-fast rule that original endings should never be changed -- filmmakers should have the artistic right to exercise dramatic license when adapting a work to a different medium. Yet how often have film versions actually improved endings that they've changed?

I'm not ashamed to say that I cry at the movies. Not frequently, but occasionally a story and its characters will grab hold of me to the extent that I'm completely caught up in the emotions and feelings being expressed. Films as disparate as John Ford's The Searchers and Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express have caused me to weep with joy, relief, and sorrow.

Despite a relentless barrage of scenes evidently designed with the sole goal of jerking tears, Nick Cassavetes' My Sister's Keeper did not make me cry. It is, however, one of the most glorious-looking terminal cancer pictures I've ever seen. Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Black Stallion, The Natural) paints the oft-mundane proceedings in an otherworldly glow, as though the transition to the next life had already begun. That's the guiding principle of the movie as a whole; even though an inflammatory and emotionally wrenching issue serves as the linchpin for the plot, great pains are taken to soften the blows so as not to inflict lasting damage upon the viewer.

Frankly, that latter point, much more than whether I personally shed tears, is what prevents My Sister's Keeper from escaping middlebrow territory. Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric are splendidly noble as Brian and Sara Fitzgerald, whose daughter Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) is diagnosed at a young age with leukemia. Brian and Sara conceive another child with genetic modifications so she can serve as a donor to her sister. Anna (Abigail Breslin) (*) seems fine with all the body part donations until Kate's condition worsens to the point that she needs a kidney transplant. Then 11-year-old Anna marches into the office of well-known lawyer Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin) and demands medical emancipation from her parents.

I may have to hold my nose for this one. Hitman 2 is in development, says Variety, and 20th Century Fox has hired Kyle Ward to write a script that incorporates elements from "Hitman 5," a video game due for release in late 2010. So a movie sequel will be cribbing from a video game sequel, and more crappy product will fill the corporate pipeline.

Reportedly, the first Hitman was made for $30 million. It grossed $40 million in the US and $60 million overseas, according to Box Office Mojo. The overseas total and DVD sales must have pushed it well into the black, ensuring that a sequel would be inevitable. Putting aside the bottom line, the film itself was relentlessly mediocre. I entered with modest expectations, having heard that Fox had taken the project away from director Xavier Gens, who made the ferocious horror thriller Frontière(s). The studio denied the rumors, but Hitman felt flat and flaccid, only occasionally offering glimpses of the brilliance Gens had shown. Whether it was sophomore slump or studio interference, I ask you: did anyone leave the theater pumping their fist in the air, shouting, "More! I want more! More Hitman! Now!"

I didn't think so. Timothy Olyphant, who was so good in Deadwood, wasn't a very compelling assassin, and Olga Kurylenko supplied nothing more than decorative value. For those who care, Hitman 2 finds Agent 47 "at a low point. He must build himself back up psychologically and physically to reclaim his mantle as the world's most feared assassin." I can hardly wait.