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Show SpecialFeatures Monday, Aug. 24, 2009 Page 21 Instant reviews via Twitter makes Hollywood nervous By Michael Sragow The Baltimore Sun Although word of mouth could always make or break a movie, it usually took days to affect the box office. But the rise of social networking tools such as Twitter might be narrowing that time frame to hours. And that has Hollywood on edge. This summer, movies such as “Bruno” and “G.I. Joe” have had unexpected tumbles at the box office -- just within their opening weekends -- while “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” survived blistering critical reaction to become a blockbuster. Box-office watchers say the dramatic swings might be caused by Twitter and other social networking sites that can blast instant raves -- or pans -- to hundreds of people just minutes after the credits roll. “Almost every time after I go out (to a movie), I’ll tweet about it,” says Lindsay Wailes, a cook and barista from Westminster, Md. “I tweeted about `G.I. Joe’ as soon as I left the theater.” Her take: “If you like science or plot, this isn’t a movie for you; if you like explosions for no reason, you’ll love it.” She also listens to what others have to say: She turned her back on “Bruno” because of downbeat Twitter reviews. Studios are trying to gauge the impact of an avalanche of tweets and how it affects the staying power of a movie. Was the 39 percent boxoffice drop of “Bruno” from Friday to Saturday a case of disappointed moviegoers tweeting from theater lobbies? Or did a limited fan base for “Bruno” exhaust itself on that first day? “I think Twitter can’t be stopped,” says Stephen Bruno, the Weinstein Co.’s senior director of marketing. “Now you have to see it as an addition to the campaign of any movie. People want real-time news, and suddenly a studio can give it to them in a firstperson way.” Eamonn Bowles, president of Magnolia Pictures, says studios are worrying about a time when “people will be Twittering during the opening credits -- and leaving when they don’t like them.” But he also warns, “the next step (for the Twitter Effect) is for studio marketing to manipulate it.” The Weinstein Co. has done that big-time for the Friday release of the Quentin Tarantino-Brad Pitt World War II epic “Inglourious Basterds.” The company packed a screening at San Diego’s Comic-Con with people who won access via Twitter. It also staged “the first ever Red Carpet Twitter meet-up” during the movie’s premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, generating celebrity tweets including Sarah Silverman’s “just made me smile forever” and Tony Hawk’s “another Tarantino classic.” Twitter has broadened the reach of bloggers and other aspiring opinionmakers. “Just two years ago, if I saw a movie I loved or I hated, I’d be able to tell a dozen friends, tops,” says John Singh, who works for the movie and social networking Web site Flixster. “Now I can be walking out of a theater as the credits are rolling and immediately tell 500 people what I thought. ... It’s never been this easy to be this influential.” Take “The Proposal,” a film that had little buzz yet has become one of the summer’s most profitable productions. (It cost $40 million and is grossing upward of $159 million.) Flixster, which runs the Movies application for iPhones, worked with Disney/Touchstone to promote Zellweger is perfect match for ‘One and Only’ HOLLYWOOD Bestsy Sharkey most part they do. - There’s something As is so often the case, this LA Times road eminently appealing trip is as much about the about the way Renee journey as the final destinaZellweger’s circa 1953 tion. Anne, who has always New York City socialite left the details of life to the dispenses with her phimen or the staff, has to figlandering husband in the ure out if she can be just lovely little bit of nostalas resourceful without them. Grade B gia that is “My One and Robbie (Mark Rendall) is her Only.” sensitive oldest son. He is the “One and Only” She tosses some clothes one she knows she has to in a suitcase; pushes the protect most. other woman out the door just for good Meanwhile George, especially well-played measure; cleans out the safe deposit box; by Lerman, is hard at work on his teenage pulls her sons out of prep school, as soon as cynicism, a copy of “The Catcher in the she can figure out which one they’re attend- Rye” never far from his side. He fancies himing these days; and sets off on a grand self a writer and wants only to be back in the adventure nestled in the cushy leather of a intellectual embrace of New York with the baby-blue Coupe deVille. father he thinks he knows. Lerman captures No tears for Zellweger’s Anne Devereaux, the ease with which an angry teen will use and not a hair in that perfect blond bob out a growing vocabulary to wound a parent, of place, at least not yet. with Zellweger absorbing the Anne may not be the nurturblows with resignation and a ing kind, but she’s got a mothrueful drag on her cigarette. er’s instinct for self-preserva(George, by the way, and the tion, and she’s determined to film itself, is very loosely based find a suitable replacement on the actor George Hamilton for her ex, a big bandleadand his memories of that time er smoothy played by Kevin in his life -- a fact the filmmakBacon, before the money runs ers note ever so slightly.) out. That she’s many years The 1950s suit Zellweger, beyond her courting prime as does the film. A good thing hasn’t quite registered yet. for the actress, who either As 15-year-old George slips seamlessly into the space (Logan Lerman), behind the created for her as she did with wheel for the first time in his life, glances in Bridget Jones or “Chicago’s” Roxie Hart, the rearview mirror, Anne looks over and or shows up on the doorstep like someone says don’t bother, it’s only what’s ahead of who’s come to the wrong address, as was you that matters. It’s Anne’s philosophy of the case in “Leatherheads.” life as much as a driving tip for her son, and In “My One and Only,” she looks comfrom the looks of it, George understands, pletely at home as a fading beauty in pencil too: With an “I give up” shrug, he turns the skirts and pillbox hats, blood-red lipstick Caddy toward Philly. forever being freshened. Creating a smoke In British director Richard Loncraine’s screen of class and sensuality, the actress good hands, the film becomes a bitter- treats the drama and desperation of Anne’s sweet excursion through the country at life like a wayward curl she is forever trying a time when you could still depend on to tamp down. the kindness of strangers. It’s the people The period turns out to be a good one Anne knows who turn out to be the prob- for Loncraine, too, having done some of his lem. There are the many old beaus she best work with well-regarded period pieces, looks up along the way -- the Army doctor including Shakespeare’s “Richard III” and played by Chris Noth, Eric McCormack’s the Winston Churchill love-in-a-time-of-war rich Pittsburgh playboy -- and her homely TV film “The Gathering Storm.” older sister (Robin Weigert) who’s still bitter He and cinematographer Marco after all these years. Pontecorvo keep subtly adjusting the styles At the beginning, she breezes through and colors to reflect the family’s changing the men and the cliches they represent as circumstances, from the sleek Manhattan she always has. There are a lot of them, apartment they leave behind to the increasmostly forgettable, and it is here that the ingly down-market last resorts that become film threatens to lose its way. their reality. Nick Stahl’s Bud, a Brando-esque neighCalifornia, bathed in light, comes as a bor who haunts the Pittsburgh stop, is relief for Anne and Robbie. (George, on the the one you wish would be there awhile other hand, finds the sunshine depressing.) longer. But Anne moves on, and it is left “My One and Only” is a relief, too, just to the scenes between mother and sons to when you think nothing will break the sumprovide the film’s saving grace, and for the mer heat, in blows a cool breeze. Reel Reviews Studio puts off release of ‘Shutter’ HOLLYWOOD (LAT) -- With just six weeks before its scheduled release, Paramount Pictures has shelved Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated psychological thriller “Shutter Island,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, until next year, saying it simply doesn’t have the money to market the movie. The move means that the film won’t be in Oscar contention for this year. It had been set for an Oct. 3 release and now is scheduled to pop onto screens Feb. 19. “Our 2009 slate was green lit in a very different economic climate and as a result we must remain flexible and willing to recalibrate and adapt to a challenging environment,” Paramount Chairman and Chief Executive Brad Grey said in a statement. He added that, “This is a situation facing every studio as we all work through financial pressures associated with the broader downturn.” Paramount, which is a unit of media giant Viacom Inc., has spent heavily promoting its summer lineup of “Star Trek,” “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.” Although all three have been successful, the cost of prints and advertising, which for all three combined was at least $200 million, goes on the studio’s books now, whereas whatever profits they generate won’t show up until much later. The studio has two other big releases for later this year on which it will spend heavily in the hope they will garner Oscar consideration: “The Lovely Bones” and “Up in the Air.” Both of those movies also involve DreamWorks. the Sandra Bullock-Ryan Reynolds romantic farce. Singh credits the campaign with increasing the film’s opening-weekend haul by 30 percent. Positive reviews from her Twitter friends can persuade Wailes to attend a film if she’s “undecided.” If it “gets raves from people I network with, since I know I have something in common with these people, I figure there must be something in the movie that I might want to see.” Gregg Kilday, film editor of The Hollywood Reporter, notes that it’s impossible to separate the factors that would explain a film’s drop or rise in box office. “Even if you don’t have Twitter, a lot of people, especially kids, have long had the ability to text each other, sometimes from within the theater,” he says. “And for a lot of the mass-market movies, the potential audience will go whether friends tell them they’re good or not.” Brandon Gray, president and founder of boxofficemojo.com, notes that the hit teen-romance vampire film “Twilight” dropped 41 percent from Friday to Saturday without any discussion of the Twitter Effect. “There have been many indications through the years that films targeting teens and young adults will have a huge Friday and a more front-loaded weekend,” Gray says. “That’s just kind of how it goes.” Movietickets.com recently ran a poll in which 88 percent of the voting sample said Twitter had no effect on them. Joel Cohen, the company’s executive vice president and general manager, thinks “we may be putting too much weight onto the Twitter Effect. But you can see Twitter’s benefits as a communications tool that spreads the word about a film, and the negatives have yet to be proven.” Bowles, who distributed the documentary “Food, Inc.,” acknowledges that “we did some Twitter-specific things, including a Twitter-cast with the movie’s director, Robby Kenner.” But he’s cautious when it comes to describing Twitter as a “revolutionary” force. “Revolutionize moviegoing? No,” he said. “But all the tiny little bits together (Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and others) can add up to something meaningful.” ‘Time Traveler’s Wife’ just one of several watchable time-travel-genre movies By Susan King Los Angeles Times HOLLYWOOD -- True love is difficult even under the best of circumstances. But what if your soul mate has come into your life via a time machine? Even eHarmony can’t help you with that issue. These out-of-time romances, though, are a perennial hit in popular culture. And for good reason: They’re an emotional thrill ride. If true love finds a way against these tremendous odds, then it gives audiences hope that they too will find their one and only. If the couples’ love is thwarted, these stories are cathartic weepfests. Then there are the “fish out of water” elements, where someone from the past or future tries to deal with the time period to which they have been transported. The latest entry in the canon of these romances, “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” opened over the weekend in third place with an estimated gross of $19.2 million. Based on the best-selling novel by Audrey Niffenegger, the fantasy revolves around a handsome Chicago librarian (Eric Bana) who happens to have a genetic disorder that causes him to travel through time when he gets stressed (although you might think it would be the other way around). Of course, this causes more than a few problems with his wife, Claire (Rachel McAdams). Bruce Joel Rubin, who won an Oscar for his 1990 spirited romance “Ghost” and adapted “Time Traveler’s Wife,” believes these love stories fly because, “I think people have an innate sense that we are not as (bound) up by time as we feel we are,” he says, adding that watching these movies “is like a release.” In the case of “Time Traveler’s Wife,” Rubin says that although it’s a fantasy, “The underpinning of the extraordinary kind of timeless love is very real. I think it’s a deep and profound wish fulfillment.” Here’s a look at how love and time travel mix on screen: “Somewhere in Time” A cult has sprung up around this 1980 romance (it wasn’t that popular when it was released) because of its over-the-top love story and beautiful lead actors. Christopher Reeve plays a young playwright who becomes enchanted with a vintage photograph of a young actress (Jane Seymour) he sees on the wall at a hotel. Through selfhypnosis, he travels back to 1912, where he falls in love with the actress. But her manager (Christopher Plummer) is less than thrilled with their romance because he feels it will derail her acting career. “The Time Machine” This 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic 1895 novel stars Rod Taylor as a young man in Victorian England who creates a time machine and finds the love of his life, the winsome Weena (Yvette Mimieux), in the future. Directed by George Pal, the film won an Oscar for its then-cutting-edge effects. Word to the wise: Avoid the disastrous 2002 remake. “Time After Time” Clever, romantic 1979 fantasy penned and directed by Nicholas Meyer that finds “Time Machine” novelist Wells (Malcolm McDowell) holding a dinner party at his house in London in 1893. But the dinner is interrupted when the police come to arrest his surgeon friend (David Warner), who might be Jack the Ripper. The doctor escapes via Wells’ own time machine. Wells soon follows and finds himself in 1979 San Francisco. He has a difficult time adjusting to modern life until he meets a sweet bank employee (Mary Steenburgen, whom McDowell later married). “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” Winner of three Academy Awards, this lavish 2008 adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story finds Benjamin (Brad Pitt) born in 1918 with the outward appearance and infirmities of an old man. As everybody gets older, Benjamin ages in reverse. At 12, he meets a 6-year-old girl named Daisy. Over the years, their paths cross. Eventually, they fall in love and have a child. But because of his age reversal, Benjamin feels that he will be a burden to Daisy (Cate Blanchett) and their child. “Kate & Leopold” Hugh Jackman steals this 2001 romantic comedy from director James Mangold. Jackman plays a British duke in 1876 -- he’s the future inventor of the elevator -- who falls through a portal and ends up in contemporary New York, where he meets and falls in love with a career woman (Meg Ryan). Eventually, she decides she’d rather be with Leopold than have a career and travels back in time to be with him. (In timetravel movies, love always wins out over more practical considerations.) “Back to the Future” The big hit of summer 1985 that spawned two sequels puts a funny twist on time-travel romance. Seventeen-year-old Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) accidentally is sent back in time 30 years in a quirky time machine built from a DeLorean automobile by his eccentric scientist friend Doc (Christopher Lloyd). Unfortunately, his “mother” (Lea Thompson), who is in high school, starts to fall in love with McFly instead of his father (Crispin Glover). McFly has to make sure his parents fall in love or he’ll disappear. “Orlando” Tilda Swinton is perfectly cast in Sally Potter’s 1993 adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel about a person who travels through four centuries, first as a man and then as a woman, finding love with a man (Billy Zane) in the contemporary world. “The Lake House” Syrupy 2006 romance starring Keanu Reeves, as an architect in 2004, and Sandra Bullock, as a physician in 2006, who fall in love via letters they leave in a mailbox at the lake house they lived in at separate points in time. “Happy Accidents” In Brad Anderson’s 2001 sci-fi romance, Marisa Tomei plays a young New Yorker who has been unlucky in love. She finally thinks she has found Mr. Right (Vincent D’Onofrio) until he tells her he’s a “back traveler” from 2470. “The Love Letter” Campbell Scott stars in this 1998 “Hallmark Hall of Fame” drama based on a short story by Jack Finney -- the author of the time-travel classic “Time and Again” -- as a computer games designer living in Boston who finds, in a secret compartment in an antique desk he bought, a love letter written by a woman (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who lived during the Civil War era. Not able to get her out of his mind and encouraged by his mother (Estelle Parsons), he writes her back, using Boston’s oldest post office, which was opened during the Civil War. Miraculously, she responds to his letter. The two fall in love via the letters -- which, not surprisingly, causes problems with Scott’s impending nuptials. |