On The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

For all the folksy sentimentality of The Curious Case of Benhjamin Button, I still find a strange and stirring poetry to it. It’s usually within a science fiction or fantasy construct that I find the most intriguing or poignant lessons about humanity. These bizarre and fantastical situations, and how we imagine we would deal with them, foster a sentiment that feels very real, more real than in many other standard dramas or stories. Perhaps it is in the imagining that we lay bare our dreams and desires, our greatest fears and weaknesses, our attempts to understand how the world works. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button poses a grossly theoretical existential crisis that gets at the very root of mortality and humanity. In Benjamin, humanity epitomizes the deity of time. But not only are we the supreme representation of that formless idol, we are also its single masterwork--its Pieta, its Mona Lisa. We should accept ourselves—the myriad of emotions and experiences that make up a single human lifetime—as a series of brushstrokes on the greatest canvas unimaginable. Our choices, our feelings, our connections with others, bring texture and color and life to this lone work of art that is the ultimate definition of Time. Fear does nothing but make you as the brushstroke less joyful—but the paint meets the canvas all the same. Better to try and hold on to the idea that every moment is worth the same as every other—that they all add to this painting in equal dimension and force. Better to enjoy as many of those moments as possible, so as to make each stroke a little less painful in the application. To see this, it takes an aberration in humanity--a Benjamin Button. When our imagination extends outward, we are finally able to look inward.

The Gang's All Here: The Muppets Movie

The other night I took a walk down memory lane. The vehicle was The Muppets, a surprisingly good movie musical about the things that get left behind in our rush to be grownups. The gang was all there –Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie and Animal. And by the time I heard the bom bom bom of The Muppet Show theme song, I had already been transported well back into my childhood. How many movies these days allow us to live out our nostalgia intact, without ruining the very essence of the thing we miss? These muppets haven’t been dumbed down or tampered with or coaxed into playing some saccharine version of themselves. They may be a little older, a little banged up, but as soon they appear on screen its clear they have the same charming presence and quirky personalities as they did in their heyday.

The power of seeing your childhood victorious on screen can be an easy thrill, but it doesn’t have to come cheap, and with this film it sure doesn’t. Witty and at times venturing into the absurd, this muppets film is pure theatrical showmanship with a tinge of mania and desperation. What if Kermit doesn't succeed and the muppets lose their theater? The same fear is present for the filmmakers, who have been given the burden of one last chance to see if there’s still any love (or money) left in these characters. Fortunately, in Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segal’s deft hands, there appears to be life after death. They take a risk with Chris Cooper rapping, and with the chorus of chickens singing a G-rated version of Cee-lo Green's Fuck You, but both gambles turn out to integrate seamlessly into the fabric of what Muppetdom and this film are all about. The muppets live for the pure joy of entertaining and their happiness is infectious. I found myself wiping many tears of laughter and delight from my eyes and already making promises to myself to come back to see it again.

Real Women Walking And Talking

I came across Allison Bechdel's  "Bechdel test" while reading one of Ted Hope's blogs.  First popping up in 1985 in her comic Dykes to Watch Out For, the Bechdel test has since become somewhat of a cultural touchstone among females in the business (and those sensitive to the portrayal of women on film), representing the sad truth about the female role in American cinema: that very few films on the marquee are able to pass 3 very simple rules:

1-The film has to have at least two women in it
2- Who talk to each other
3-About something besides a man

Now I'm not a feminist, but I was shocked to see that of the 1145 movies in the database, only about 50% passed all 3 parts of the test.  And these were movies that were self-reported!  

Studios still don't believe that their audiences want to see anything but white, straight, male leads.  And if women are involved, they sure don't want them talking to each other about anything other than love, men and babies.  It's hard to say if this widely held opinion has actually been proven right or not because so few movies have been given the marketing and P&A budget to test it.  Sure, there may be a greater variety of fare outside of Hollywood, but its a shame that the mainstream has so little faith in the interests of their audience that they continue to perpetuate stereotypes on screen that for the most part have been done away with in real life.


Check out what films pass The Bechdel Test.

The Pendulum Swings: Paramount to produce microbudgeted films?

This morning, Variety announced that Paramount is launching an initiative that will spend $1 million annually to develop and produce microbudget films.  Wasn't it just two years ago that studios, betting against indie film, shut down their independent subsidiaries?  How quickly the past is forgotten.   True, $1 million is a relatively low investment for a big Hollywood studio, but if history means anything, I can see this number creeping up as other studios jump on the bandwagon.  Fingers crossed that this is more than just a blip on the radar, and that opportunities for inventive independent filmmakers are really on the rise.

Why Hollywood Still Matters

From the articles criticizing the engorged budgets of films like "GI Joe" and "Land of the Lost" to the plunging prices of media stock chronicled in salacious detail by media analysts, one would think that the buzzards were already circling the Sony, Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros and Fox lots. While some see the downfall of this corporatized system as the dawn of a new era of a more democratized system of filmmaking, I think Hollywood is needed now more than ever.

Take a look at the countrywide efforts by lawmakers to add filmmaking tax incentives to their budgets. Much attention has been given to "Gran Torino", one of the first movies (if not the first) to be made in Michigan since lawmakers enacted a 42% tax credit for film productions with budgets over $50,000. On Kim Masters The Business, Gran Torino producer Bill Gerber cited the incentive as the main reason they decided set the film in the suburbs of Detroit rather than Minneapolis as the writer Nick Schenk, had originally envisioned.

Michigan is only one of a dozen to do so. Massachusetts, Lousiana, and New York are other states that have publicized their hefty rebates in an effort to woo producers fat with studio money. Just last Thursday, North Carolina signed legislation that will give production companies a 25 percent tax credit for film projects in North Carolina. That’s a boost from the previous credit of 15 percent.

Critics of these programs want lawmakers to roll back the incentives, questioning their wisdom in the face of high state budget deficits. Massachusetts State Representative Steve D'Amico claims productions don't employ enough local labor and don't invest in putting down roots in order to chase higher subsidiaries in other states. But with the high number of new films and television series going into production each year, the incentive programs seem to be worth the risk. The numbers provided in an online ABC News story about the Michigan incentive show how much the film industry has done to create jobs and sustain small businesses:

In 2007, before Michigan offered the credit, two films were shot there. In 2008, after the credit was enacted, 35 films were, according to the Michigan Film Office. In 2009, there are already 85 movies made or with production applications filed with the state. In 2007, moviemakers spent $2 million producing in the Great Lakes state. In 2008, that soared to $125 million.

And its not only Michigan thats profiting. A study published by the New Mexico film office found that in 2007 local governments earned approximately $1.50 for each $1.00 of state credit. In addition, 2007 productions activities created 2,200 direct jobs. When factoring in film related capital spending, the number rises to 3,769.+/-

To take a another contemporary example, the recently enhanced incentives offered by New York allowed Ang Lee to shoot "Taking Woodstock" in Lebanon, New York rather than on an LA film set. “’Taking Woodstock’ is a New York story, but without the enhanced tax credit incentive we never could’ve filmed in New York,” says executive producer Celia Costas. The benefits proved to be twofold. According to the popular production newsletter "Resource 411", the production ‘Taking Woodstock’ generated an estimated $8 million to boost the local economy and spent nearly $25 million throughout New York State. In an article about the film published in the NYTimes on August 23rd, locals couldn't say enough positive things about the effects of the shoot on their community. Mr. Lee remembers how one woman stopped him and said: "All the events are on the other side of the border, in Massachusetts. Finally [the residents of Lebanon] have got a cultural event here." Restaurant owner Michael DeBella told the Times reporter "Without the movie, I doubt we would have made it through last winter. That's how close to closing we were."

While its easy to decry the excesses and waste of corporate Hollywood, its these same corporations that are helping (in no small part) to bring new jobs and renewed pride to economically depressed areas. Does this mean I think Jeff Bewkes deserves a Distinguished Service Award? No, but just as there's a need for small independent productions to push the boundaries of storytelling and distribution, I think there's also a need for the big, bloated productions of Spiderman and the like to keep pumping a little movie magic into areas that could use it.

R.I.P. W.G.A.

What the writers didn't realize, or chose to ignore, when they went on strike November 5th was the long-term effects their ballyhooing would have on their careers. An article in this Monday's Variety takes stock of the combined elements of the strike, recession, and threat of a SAG walkout to come up with a very doom and gloom prophecy for the future of scripted television. Any motivation by studio execs to "take risks" with projects that once fell within the television norm has been killed by the never ending stream of low concept, low budget reality TV shows. Why pay overheard for writers when trash is free? The leverage writers thought they had gained in protesting the yet-to-be-determined revenue models for internet distribution was really just an attractive pipe dream. Hollywood and TV land are downsizing, and writers are the most expendable product.