400 Screens, 400 Blows: Post-Oscar Activity in the Lower Dimensions

While Hollywood and the media continue to concentrate on the week's box office "winners" -- i.e. whichever film grossed the most money while playing on 3000 screens -- I will try to throw a little light on those poor, neglected creatures languishing on 400 screens or less.

After its unexpected Oscar win, Lionsgate dusted off some prints and re-released Crash in theaters. Not unexpectedly, it did quite well -- despite the fact that the DVD has been available for months -- with over $300,000 week on 200 screens and an overall ranking of #27. If you want to compare, Walk the Line made about $200,000 on 260 screens, and the Weinsteins' animated dud Doogal did about the same on 300 screens.

More than likely all those ticket-buyers came away with one thought: "overrated." But what really irritated me was all those people the day after the Oscars who claimed they predicted it would win. Unless you knew someone in the Academy with the inside dope, Brokeback Mountain was the clear contender. Either way, they were both this year's English Patient, while A History of Violence and/or The New World were the year's Fargo. Now that everything's all said and done, only time can separate the wheat from the chaff.

If I may take a moment to continue griping about some very old news, the recent Best Foreign Film Oscar gave Tsotsi a huge boost in popularity. Last week it jumped from #54 on the box office list to #31 while on 30 screens. This week it holds steady on 57 screens. Frankly, I never expected it to win simply because, in a category filled with four mediocre films and only one good one, it was unquestionably the worst. But that gives too much credit to the Academy and makes pie-in-the-sky assumptions, such as that its members actually watched all five foreign films.

As for the other nominees, Paradise Now is the biggest moneymaker on 15 screens, but unlike its fellows, it had the advantage of a theatrical release in 2005 and has been continuously playing since November. Many reviewers lavished praise upon its up-to-the-moment story of Palestinian suicide bombers, but few noticed that it was in fact not a very good movie. Next up is the French entry, Joyeux Noël, which is only one-third French and has done almost as well as Tsotsi's box office take on only 20 screens.

The only really good nominee from among the five, Germany's Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, still did fairly well on 18 screens. Caught for distributing anti-Nazi flyers in 1943, Sophie, her brother and a friend were arrested, questioned and executed. Hinging on a magnificent performance by Julia Jentsch, the movie levels its gaze upon her as she deftly deflects the weighted fascist questions, but gives equal commitment to her questioners.

The fifth entry, the Italian soap opera La Bestia nel cuore, was only recently picked up by Lionsgate hastily renamed with the forgettable title Don't Tell. It opened last week on 5 screens. Several of the actors also appeared in The Best of Youth, which for my money, should have been nominated instead.

The biggest foreign film hits were conspicuously absent from Oscar ballots. Michael Haneke's Caché (Hidden), currently on 77 screens, has racked up a respectable $3.1 million so far. Hitting a $1.3 million domestic gross, the Russian pop hit Night Watch, frankly, may have been the only bad foreign film that didn't get nominated.

That's sad, but the year's biggest tragedy has to be Terrence Malick's magnificently messy masterpiece The New World. It took a rather unexpected critical trouncing and is currently languishing on about 60 screens with a measly $12.6 million gross (working off an estimated $30 million budget). I can't help but think that if this were the 1970s, this film would be one of the year's biggest hits. It only snagged a single Oscar nomination -- Best Cinematography -- and lost to the insipid Memoirs of a Geisha.

I was talking with Wim Wenders last week, in town to promote his latest film, the upcoming Don't Come Knocking, and he said that The New World was the only film that really mattered in 2005. If you've missed it, your last chance is coming fast.

On their way back down (or... Give 'em Hell Harry): Two blockbusters are still duking it out for box office seniority, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Chronicles of Narnia, each having grossed about $289 million. However, Buena Vista shot dirty pool this week by opening Narnia even wider, while Harry slipped down to 234 screens, and so the latter is now in the lead by about $100,000. I'm still pulling for Harry...

On less than 20 screens and recommended: the aforementioned Sophie Scholl, Steve Martin's lovely and misunderstood Shopgirl (16 screens), the shockingly funny Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic (7 screens), the underrated, very sweet romantic comedy Imagine Me & You -- braver in its own way than even Brokeback Mountain -- (5 screens), the brilliant satire Thank You for Smoking (5 screens), Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt (3 screens), Asia Argento's vicious The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2 screens) and the revival of Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol (2 screens).

Let's hope the future is brighter.