Monday, March 18, 2024

In Laman's Terms: What Have Been The Biggest Neon Movies At The Box Office?

Everyone knows about A24 in the modern cinema landscape. That label's become the de facto champ of modern arthouse studios. Heck, when I was at a Problemista press screening a few weeks back, I overheard the guy next to me recounting how he'd previously explained Problemista to a friend of his by saying "it's the new A24 movie." But also out there pumping new oddball movies into movie theaters (like this weekend's latest evil nuns horror movie Immaculate) is Neon. Technically founded in September 2015 (though it didn't have a name when it first began acquiring movies), Neon hit the ground running in April 2017 with the criminally underrated Colossal. Since then, the studios released the Best Picture Oscar winner Parasite and a bevy of other acclaimed movies, including superb 2023 movies like Anatomy of a Fall and The Royal Hotel.

As the seventh anniversary of Neon approaches in April, it's worth asking...what does Neon's box office track record look like? What are the biggest Neon films in history? Let's take a look at those questions! To me, my box office geeks! Let's get down to some nerdy analyzing! 

Because Box Office Mojo has been reduced to a shell of its former self, The-Numbers is the only accessible place to get concrete box office data on Neon's box office track record. The numbers we'll be looking at today come from this website and only concern the North American box office hauls of these movies. Here's a helpful screengrab of the 25 highest-grossing Neon films domestically:

Unsurprisingly, the two biggest Neon movies are also two of its biggest Oscar contenders. It's also worth mentioning that only two Neon features have ever cracked $20 million domestically. Only four have exceeded $10 million in North America. Breaking things down more intricately, it's fascinating how instrumental documentaries were to the early days of Neon. I just recently wrote for Collider how A24 has a poor track record with properly handling documentaries. The studio rarely produced or distributed such titles before November 2019. Even as their documentary output has ramped up, A24 has taken to dumping these titles onto streaming with no fanfare. Meanwhile, Neon's earliest hits were documentaries like The Biggest Little Farm, Amazing Grace, Three Identical Strangers, and Apollo 11

Five of the 14 biggest Neon titles domestically are documentaries, a statistic that encapsulates how integral such titles have been to this studio's box office track record. In 2018 and 2019, Neon bolstered its credibility by filling a void in the theatrical marketplace. Other arthouse studios (Fox Searchlight, A24, Annapurna, etc.) weren't releasing many documentaries period. Neon delivered these titles to theaters with solid marketing campaigns, catchy hooks that grabbed the attention of audiences, and slow-burn theatrical release rollouts that allowed word-of-mouth to develop. It's a shame Neon has largely abandoned documentaries since 2022 (though the studio has documentaries like Seeking Mavis Beacon and Orwell on the horizon). They gave these titles a major boost in their theatrical presence while documentaries gave Neon some of its biggest box office success stories.

A similar phenomenon is at play with Neon's solid track record with releasing foreign-language titles. Even beyond the obvious massive success of Parasite, 20% of Neon's top 20 films are foreign-language titles. Two of the studio's ten biggest films ever in North America aren't in the English language! Again, Neon found a domain other studios weren't dabbling in (pre-2022, A24 had minimal forays into foreign-language titles, save for the occasional Menasche, Minari, and Climax). In the process, they filled a void other studios were ignoring. Heck, the studio even got a bizarre foreign-language masterpiece like Titane to a $1.44 million domestic haul, a sum that outshines more accessible English-language titles from the Neon library like Eileen and Vox Lux. Anatomy of a Fall edging out Infinity Pool for the title of highest-grossing Neon film from 2023 (despite the former title never entering wide release) should be a sign: foreign-language films need to be Neon's bread-and-butter.

The highs have been high for Neon in its first seven years of existence...so what've been the lows? Mostly just stabs at trying more mainstream fare. Initially, Neon struggled to gain any kind of momentum for movies it opened immediately in wide release. Titles like Assassination Nation and The Beach Bum just wiped out immediately on opening weekend. The studio has also demonstrated some truly baffling release decisions for titles that could've been slamdunk crowdpleaser. The 2019 charmer Wild Rose, for instance, should've been that summer's Begin Again. Instead, Neon refused to expand it beyond 195 theaters, thus ensuring its box office run would be limited. This same studio also kept excellent titles like Clemency and Little Woods in bizarrely few theaters.

Even for English-language narrative titles it's giving a greater theatrical push to, Neon stumbles. Last year's How to Blow Up a Pipeline, for instance, was advertised as being "in theaters everywhere" April 14, 2023. On that day, it only expanded into 142 locations. It ended up going into 530 nationwide theaters the following weekend. Not only was that not accurate to its marketing campaign, but that placed Pipeline directly against the wide-release expansion of Beau is Afraid. No wonder Pipeline couldn't make more than $725,655 domestically! So far, the studio's foray into wide release horror movies (like It Lives Inside and Infinity Pool) has not yielded much in the way of big box office grosses nor widespread critical acclaim. Immaculate has been advertised heavily (Sydney Sweeney even mentioned it in her SNL monologue from a few weeks back) and is anchored by a very recognizable leading lady. Maybe it'll break Neon's streak of struggles to break into a marketplace A24 has cornered for modern moviegoers.

To its credit, though, the team at Neon has done well with launching certain English-language narrative titles. Colossal did a decent $3.19 million in April 2017, while Pig was one of the first arthouse hits in the wake of theaters shutting down in March 2020 thanks to its $3.18 million gross in July 2021. Luce did solid numbers back in August 2019 with a $2.01 million haul despite never playing in more than 235 locations. Most surprisingly, Spencer did a tad better than I remembered with a $7.08 million haul in November 2021, back when the arthouse sector was still getting its sea legs back. It's one of only eight Neon titles to clear $5 million domestically, which makes that gross extra solid.

Neon's box office history is unexpectedly reassuring in terms of what moviegoers will show up for. Neon made more money from Perfect Days, The Worst Person in the World, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire than its more mainstream-skewing genre titles like In the Earth and Assassination Nation. Moviegoers will show up for new challenging things. You just have to put them into theaters! Neon's biggest box office hits come from delivering titles that no other arthouse outfit (not even A24) would touch. When it comes to launching something like Ferrari or Infinity Pool (both of which could've come from any studio), things get a little thornier financially for the studio. If there is a major bright side for the company, it's that its recent slate of titles has been among its most lucrative movies ever. 

Perfect Days is set to narrowly exceed the $3.19 million domestic haul of Colossal in its North American run. That means six of the 17 biggest Neon movies ever have been released over the last 14 months (from January 2023 to March 2024). This also means the arthouse studio has delivered six $3+ million grossers over that same period of time. For comparison's sake, Neon only had three movies in all of 2022 scoring $3+ million domestic hauls. Even in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, Neon only had four $3+ million grossing movies. It's 100% true that this increase is largely because Neon is now doing more costly immediate wide releases for its movies. However, slow-burn performing arthouse titles like Perfect Days, Origin, and Anatomy of A Fall all scoring $3+ million domestic hauls between October 2023 and March 2024 suggest this studio is ramping up its box office prowess. Who knows, maybe Neon will score enough box office hits that I'll eventually overhear people at screenings saying "oh, I told my friends this is the new Neon movie"...


Sunday, March 17, 2024

In Laman's Terms: I Can't Stop Thinking About The Dancing Scene in 35 Shots of Rum

Dancing is one of the most beautiful sights in cinema. There's a reason some of the earliest movies captured ballet dancers or two people doing simple dance movies. Dancing is such a cathartic exercise. It's how we express emotions, passion, or jubilation that words cannot convey. It's also just deeply evocative to watch on-screen, especially when it concerns two people becoming physically intimate in the acting of dancing. Iconic director Claire Denis is no stranger to the power of cinematic depictions of dancing thanks to the unforgettable ending of her 1999 masterpiece Beau Travail. No offense to that stirring conclusion (which really is a masterwork of filmmaking), but for my money, the greatest Denis dance sequence comes in one of her slightly later movies. That title would be 35 Shots of Rum, a 2009 Denis directorial effort that contains a dancing sequence I cannot remove from my brain.

Some context: 35 Shots of Rum is a quiet character study chronicling the lives of father Lionel (Alex Descas) and adult daughter Josephine (Mati Diop). The duo live together in an apartment building and have carved out a life where they rely heavily on each other. Lionel is a widower and Josephine is a woman who never knew her mother. A sense of loneliness permeates these two leaving them dependent on each other. As 35 Shots of Rum goes on, the script by Denis and Jean-Pol Fargeau depicts Josephine beginning to develop a life beyond just her relationship with her father. Both she and Lionel start to realize there may be more to existence than their rapport.

This realization is especially apparent once Lionel and Josephine seek shelter from the rain inside a bar. Joining the pair is Noé (Grégoire Colin), a neighbor in their apartment building with feelings for Josephine. As everyone settles down in the bar, Lionel and Josephine initially dance together to the tune of "Siboney", a Ralph Thamar tune. Then, the songs change. The Commodore's ditty "Night Shift" begins to play. This is when Noé enters the frame and, without saying a word, indicates he wants a dance with Josephine. Lionel retreats from the shot, leaving these two people as the only folks in the shot. 

Denis and Agnès Godard do not have the camera blink away as Lionel and Josephine start to dance together. Nor are more intimate shots employed to fit the standards of typical romantic movie sequences. Instead, the camera is kept away from the characters and their initial physicality is framed in a cold unbroken shot. There isn't immediate rapturous love between these two. There is a bit of awkwardness as they try to publicly dance together. The precise placement of the camera and the refusal to cut away accentuates that self-consciousness beautifully. When the camera finally does cut away, it's to a close-up shot of Lionel looking on in intense distress. He's bottling up his emotions, but Alex Descas still vividly conveys how conflicted this character feels. Lionel is witnessing first-hand how his daughter has a life beyond him.

Returning to Josephine and Noé, 35 Shots of Rum gets a lot of power from how exceptional Diop and Colin are at dialogue-free acting. In the hands of these performers, one feels a rollercoaster of emotions watching Josephine and Noé navigate the ritual of dancing. For a moment, there seems to be a sensual sweetness to their interactions, especially the way their fingers interlock. Then Noé will become a little too enamored with clutching Josephine's hair. A sense of unease suddenly fills every inch of the viewer. With the camera not cutting away, the viewer observes Josephine and Noé exploring whether or not they work well together in real time. Eventually, the dancing fizzles out, with the duo sitting down at nearby chairs. Both look distraught with what just happened. I love Colin's body language for Noé in this moment, his right arm stretched towards Josephine (but not touching her) while his head is tilted at the ground. 

Colin's physicality here communicates vividly how Noé is torn between his feelings for Josephine and a desire to live independently (Noé is always threatening to leave the apartment complex and move far away). Meanwhile, Diop curls Josephine's two hands together, eyes staring off into space as she fully absorbs what it was like to dance with Noé. Neither Colin nor Diop need dialogue to convey these complicated interior worlds. Their slightest actions say so much about Noé and Josephine. Meanwhile, Denis and Varda have kept the camera so intensely focused on Noé and Josephine on the dance floor. Once these two characters sit down, it becomes mildly disorienting (in a good way) to suddenly see them in the background of a shot. As  Noé and Josephine recover, the camera cuts away from these two to a server at the bar preparing a dish. We follow this woman as she brings the dish to its intended customer. As she does so, the camera only captures Noé and Josephine as background figures to the larger bustling eatery. As this pair of figures ruminates on their dynamic, they become disassociated from the dance floor and even the other people around them. The camerawork mirrors their relationship to the wider world by forcing them into the background. It's a mesmerizingly detailed bit of camera work reflecting how the multi-faced visuals of 35 Shots of Rum mirror the incredibly nuanced characters on-screen.

After watching his daughter dance with Noé, Lionel proceeds to get on the dance floor himself with the kindly woman who let him and his group into this bar. This moment and the entire dance sequence thrive on a transfixing sense of ambiguity. Is Lionel doing this to "spite" his daughter? To show her that he too is capable of existing without her? Perhaps his reasons are more innocent. Perhaps he's trying to stave off the loneliness that's clearly consuming his recently retired friend Rene. Maybe he even feels genuinely attracted to this lady. All the ambiguity in this sequence excitingly reminds one of the opening sequence of Past Lives. There, a pair of off-screen figures try to decipher the dynamic between the three lead characters of Past Lives. They don't know these people, they never will. Yet they're trying to decode these mysterious lives from the small physical clues they can gleam from across the bar.

The dancing sequence in 35 Shots of Rum leaves viewers and even this film's in-universe character in a similar situation. Without any dialogue or ham-fisted visual cues to hammer home character motivations, there's a thrilling sense of realistic ambiguity to the actions of everyone on-screen. Meanwhile, folks like Josephine and Lionel aren't talking to one another in this scene. They can only watch from across the room, trying to interpret what's going on in the other person's mind. With so little direct communication, they and the viewer are left to stew over the meaning behind every tiny movement. There's love, hate, contempt, affection, pain, and everything in between swirling around on that tavern dance floor. All those paradoxical emotions require deeply intricate performances. The actors inhabiting this unforgettable 35 Shots of Rum sequence are more than up to that challenge.

 Meanwhile, the very precise visual language of this entire scene is just as remarkable as the work delivered by individuals like Descas and Diop. It's especially great how Denis and Varda subvert the wider shots of Josephine and Noé dancing with later claustrophobic images of Lionel swaying the night away with a lady. Capturing his time dancing in cramped confines suggests how trapped this man feels. He is torn between the realization that his daughter is growing up into an independent person and his burning desire for the status quo to remain. He cannot escape his sense of entrapment even whilst dancing "romantically", hence the tight close-up shots.

Even the needle drop choice here is a perfect pick that ingeniously compliments the complicated tone of this 35 Shots of Rum scene."Night Shift" by Commodores totally sounds like a great dancing song with its irresistible groove, pounding drums, and vocals that ooze with desire. However, there's also something bittersweet to the tune. Perhaps it's the wistful nature ingrained into the tune by way of it being a tribute to Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye. Maybe it's the way the chorus vocals seem to echo endlessly as if they're being sung into a void rather than a dance floor packed with sweat and sexual energy. "Night Shift" is equally effective at being both a toe-tapper and a wistful melody. Those nuanced qualities make it the perfect backdrop to this 35 Shots of Rum sequence, which transverses as many different emotions as the song. "Night Shift" can communicate the potential burgeoning between Josephine and Noé. Its lyrics also beautifully crystallize the mindset of a man a bit too trapped by the past. 

Every little detail of this dancing sequence in 35 Shots of Rum absolutely transfixed me. It's a scene that just aches with realistic depictions of yearning, longing, and quiet despair. It's also a sequence that reminds us all just how glorious dancing is in the world of cinema. Whether it's an intricately choreographed display of Gene Kelly's masterful dancing or the more realistically messy dancing seen in 35 Shots of Rum, this physical act is a perfect fit for the world of movies...especially when it's being brought to life by a director like Claire Denis!

Saturday, March 16, 2024

In Laman's Terms: The Oscars Don't Have a Viewership Problem

Back in February 2022, Bilge Ebiri wrote an excellent essay for Vulture breaking down how the Academy Awards trying to be self-hating will never solve the show's perceived "problems." It was a fantastic rebuke against the deluge of jokes in the ceremony at the expense of the long runtimes of Best Picture nominees and other gags seemingly directed at folks who'd never tune into the Academy Awards in 2024. Ebiri astutely pointed out that many of these problems stemmed from the Oscars constantly trying to be "broader" to correct supposed issues with the show's viewership. However, this writer flat-out called out this perception for what it was: false. Ebiri pointed out how the Oscars still dwarf all other non-sports television programming in terms of viewership (more on that shortly). Yet, ABC and the Academy continue to fret over the Oscars no longer being viewed by as many people in 2024 as they were in 1998.

The folks behind this award show need to heed the words of Ebiri. The Oscars don't have a viewership problem and it's bizarre that this conceit persists year after year.

Thanks to a helpful chart compiled by Ratings Ryan (based on first-hand sources like Variety news articles from when the ceremonies first aired or Nielsen ratings reports), one gets a helpful glimpse into how many viewers and (in the case of pre-1974 shows) households this show has regularly dragged up. Looking at the history of these numbers, one can see that the Oscars don't have a viewership problem as defined by the Academy and ABC. For the purposes of this piece, let's just look at the shows from the 1974 awards onward, which counted viewers (the same metric used to measure Oscar viewership today).

For most years before the year 2000, the Oscars regularly garnered 40+ million viewers, though the show could sink to sub-40 million viewers on several ceremonies when the Best Picture nominees weren't universally seen. Unsurprisingly, the ceremony where Star Wars was nominated for Best Picture scored more eyeballs than the ceremony where Out of Africa was up for the same award! The least-viewed of these pre-2000 occasions was the 59th Academy Awards ceremony, with 37.19 million viewers tuning in to watch Platoon score Best Picture. These ceremonies existed in an era without streaming programming competition, DVRs, and the highest-profile HBO shows you could watch were Maximum Security and Philip Marlowe, Private Eye.

In March 2003, CBS News ran a piece proclaiming "TV Ratings For Oscars Plunge" in response to the 74th Academy Awards scoring 33.1 million viewers, the lowest viewership of the Oscars at that point. The outlet pointed out that the then-recent finale of Joe Millionaire outpaced the Oscars in viewership, a reflection of just how hot reality programming was in this era. Whispers about troubling Academy Awards viewership had abounded before, but now there were constant eyeballs on the numbers this show generated. In the age of the internet, people had more accessibility to the historical records of Nielsen viewership for Oscar ceremonies. Meanwhile, news outlets had a fresh virtual landscape they could make money off of by delivering pieces with eye-catching headlines like "the Oscars in viewership turmoil."

As the 2000s continued on, Oscar viewership hit another low in February 2008 with 32 million viewers, which The Hollywood Reporter dubbed "a ratings flop" for the kind of numbers a FOX executive would kill for in 2024. Despite being a "ratings flop," Nielsen still reported at the end of the year that the Academy Awards were the most-watched TV program of the year that didn't pertain to sports or the Olympics. More people were still tuning into the Oscars than to watch that season's final two contestants of American Idol rub shoulders with the star of The Love Guru. As the years went on, the Oscars continued to score as the biggest non-sports telecast of a typical year, such as in 2013 or in 2015. Even with these accomplishments, outlets like Time Magazine were still running headlines about how "TV Viewers Deserted the Oscars This Year".

Interestingly, the Academy Awards ceremonies fended off sinking below the nadir viewership of the 80th Academy Awards until the 90th Academy Awards, which became the first-ever Oscars to secure below 30 million viewers with 26.54 million viewers. Since then, the Oscars have never returned to the 30+ million viewership domain. The last three shows scored in the 16.675-19.5 million viewership range, with the 93rd Academy Awards in 2021 securing an all-time low viewership of 10.540 million viewers. Chalk that one up to the first year of COVID-19 leaving both everyone unable to watch the new movies and the Best Picture nominees from scoring much of a pop culture footprint.

There's no question the Oscars have slipped in viewership, with the 96th Academy Awards being down by roughly 47% from the 37.30 million viewers who tuned into the 87th Academy Awards nine years ago. However, that's more emblematic of how live TV viewership trends have shifted than anything else. Unless you're the Super Bowl, people are tuning into live TV less and less in an age of YouTube and streaming. For comparisions sake, let's look at the average viewership of NCIS, one of the biggest scripted shows on TV. This program averaged 16.61 million viewers for the 2015-2016 season. For the 2022-23 season, it plunged down to 9.86 million viewers on average. Across both of those seasons, NCIS was the third-most watched scripted program on television. It's just that the numbers needed to reach that spot have changed drastically in just a handful of years.

The same phenomenon is happening to the Oscars, which (save for that 2021 ceremony) still ranked as the most-watched non-sports telecast of 2022 and of 2023. Now, all these numbers and analysis shouldn't be perceived as bootlicking for ABC and the Academy, but rather a call to action to those entities. There's clearly no real problem going on with Oscars viewership that's exclusive to this awards show. Dwindling live numbers to this program are a result of shifts in how people consume television, not folks inherently abandoning the Oscars. However, this means that the folks behind this awards show need to focus less on "improving the ratings" and concentrate on matters that would actually benefit this event. Instead of straining to conjure up "viral moments" meant to boost viewership, let's get those Oscar categories for stunt performers and voice actors finally implemented into the show! Let's make gender-neutral acting categories! Let's ban anyone from the Oscar who (in the future) introduces the Best Animated Feature category with some snide remark about "did you let your kids fill out the voting form for this one?" There are plenty of ways the Oscars need to improve. Clearly, as Bilge Ebiri pointed out two years ago, viewership woes are not one of them.

Friday, March 15, 2024

In Laman's Terms: The Simpsons And Its Era of Lengthy Couch Gags

Even if you've never seen an episode of The Simpsons, chances are you know the lengthy opening sequence that precedes most installments of the show. The show starts in the clouds before having the camera zoom through Springfield and resting on Bart writing up a phrase on the chalkboard. The opening sequence then follows each member of the Simpsons family before concluding with everyone meeting up at the house. As they arrive in the domicile, a "couch gag" occurs. Such a gag involves the five members of the Simpsons family trying to sit down on their couch but something goes wrong. It's a lengthy kick-off to an average Simpsons episode, but this set-up has proven to be one of the most iconic elements of the program.

Believe it or not, though, for a while there, these opening sequences were even longer! For nearly a decade of the program's history, there were extremely long couch gags that ate up airtime and attempted to give the show some "viral" moments. This is...The Era of Lengthy Couch Gags!

For nearly the entire first 20 years of The Simpsons, the show rigidly adhered to its opening sequence format. Shorter versions of this opening (which included just the chalkboard and couch gags or even just the latter element) would be implemented for many installments, but there was always something preceding the proper episode. The demands of cramming all the narrative demands of a traditional Simpsons episode meant that every second counted on this program. This necessitated that couch gags be short and to the point. Occasionally, slightly longer couch gags (like one involving the family doing a chorus line dance that transitions into a big Vegas-style production) would be implemented. However, these gags (largely limited to installments from seasons 3 and 4) were done out of necessity to boost up an episode that ran short. They weren't prepared as a showcase for unique artists or as homages to other programs. Plus, there was a cap on how long they ran. The thought of these gags going on for more than 60 seconds would've been incomprehensible in the era of 1990s television.

However, in March 2007, the episode "Homerazzi" broke viewer expectations by delivering a couch gag that wasn't confined to just the house of The Simpsons. This gag followed a single-cell organism version of Homer Simpson navigating the entire process of evolution. Various Springfieldianites were rendered as dinosaurs, possums, fish, and other critters. The entire sequence culminated with Homer arriving on the couch with the rest of his family, causing Marge to inquire "what took you so long?" Running 70 seconds, the couch gag redefined the visual and length possibilities of this staple of The Simpsons. There's never been official word on why the crew behind the show suddenly decided to go in this expansive direction with the couch gag after so many years. 

One possibility, though, is The Simpsons Movie. "Homerazzi" debuted just four months before that theatrical release. Perhaps the artists and writers behind The Simpsons were getting so jazzed with the creative possibilities of making a movie that they looked to bring some of that audacity to the small screen. Whatever the reason, a new world of possibilities opened up just in time for a new decade of the show's history. The Simpsons was about to enter its 20s, not to mention the world of high-def animation. With these events on the horizon, lengthier variations on the couch gag were about to become a lot more common. The first HD episode of The Simpsons ("Take My Life, Please) featured a 47-second long couch gag that saw the titular family chasing their couch all across the world and even into outer space. The second-ever HD episode, "How the Test Was Won," would contain a similarly lengthy couch gag depicting the Simpsons family strolling through a series of iconic sitcom backdrops.

Initially, these longer-form couch gags had their uniqueness defined by their expansive scope. The Simpsons no longer just encountered strange events in their living room. Their couch gag exploits could take them to any TV show or country. However, the era of the lengthy couch gag would soon be defined by two key elements: participation by outside artists and attempts to go "viral". Both of these elements could be seen in the entire opening sequence of the 2010 episode "To Surveil With Love," which saw the denizens of Springfield lip-syncing to the Ke$ha tune "Tik Tok." Combining an incredibly popular song/person with The Simpsons was clearly a move on the part of the producers to get some extra eyeballs on the show. This was the age of "going viral" on YouTube, after all. Programs like Saturday Night Live and Jimmy Kimmel Live were already having great success in the late 2000s with standalone shorts and segments that took on another life online. The pre-episode segments of The Simpsons were ample territory for this show to create its own equivalent to "Dick in a Box" or "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck."

Having broken the seal of using the opening sequence of this show as a way to cross-promote with other artists, the couch gags began to take on a whole new lengthy life of their own. In October 2010, the episode "MoneyBART" took these possibilities to dark places by having Banksy (then at the height of his fame) draw up an opening sequence depicting sweatshop workers making Simpsons episodes, merchandise, and DVDS in deplorable conditions. Where are these workers located? Within the 20th Century Fox logo, of course! It was a really subversive piece of material that smuggled biting commentary on the conditions that produce escapist American entertainment within a mainstream sitcom episode. 

Later lengthy couch gags would bring in other guest artists to give the Simpsons world a unique visual spin, with folks ranging from Bill Plympton to Eric Goldberg to Don Hertzfeldt all delivering couch gags that could only have come from their brains. Meanwhile, in April 2013, an additional new precedent for lengthy couch gags was set when the episode "What Animated Women Want" featured a quasi-crossover with Breaking Bad. This segment opened the door for later couch gags like a 2015 segment that saw Rick and Morty (literally) crash-landing onto the Simpsons family. A pair of later couch gags would also make use of the world and animation style of Robot Chicken. Let's also not forget the season 28 premiere that featured a couch gag based on the opening to Adventure Time, complete with vocals from that show's creator, Pendelton Ward. 

These lengthy couch gags allowed The Simpsons to inhabit new visual styles and even mediums of animation (like stop-motion). These attributes lent some exciting artistic virtues to such segments. Meanwhile, FOX and the producers had to be happy with the hefty YouTube viewcounts for couch gags that attracted the Rick & Morty, Ke$ha, or Breaking Bad fanbases. Bizarrely, they were attached to episodes that were often downright forgettable. After experiencing a brief creative resurgence in the initial years after the show switched over to high-definition, The Simpsons went into a creative rut in the mid-2010s (save for episodes that were executive-produced by Matt Selman). Installments like "A Test Before Trying", "YOLO," or "Luca$" felt like the creations of writers keeping a show alive out of obligation, not creative fervor. While the couch gags suggested The Simpsons could be anything, the episodes themselves were largely lifeless.

By the end of the 2010s, the lengthier couch gags began to whittle down in presence. Occasionally more ambitious segments (like a parody of the opening of Succession or the Simpsons family members portraying Queen performing their 1985 Live Aid concert) would emerge, but the couch gags were becoming briefer again. The age of "going viral" had changed significantly in just a decade, with TikTok now being the main platform to go viral on rather than YouTube. The lengthy couch gags actually clashed with the short-form videos most popular on TikTok. This diminished their importance on a financial or exposure level. Meanwhile, it was more difficult than ever, even just in the span of a few years, to come up with concepts for eye-catching crossovers with other shows. The age of "Peak TV" meant there was more programming out there than ever before. It was hard to figure out a pop culture-defining program (like Breaking Bad, for instance) that the Simpsons family could rub shoulders with in a couch gag that would immediately make the internet go crazy. Would an Ozark-themed couch gag really set the world on fire?

There's also the simple fact that the current version of The Simpsons has bigger fish to fry. In a 2023 Vulture interview about the creative resurgence of this sitcom, showrunner Matt Selman observed that an average Simpsons episode now has as much effort put into it as the typical "Treehouse of Horror" installment. With modern Simpsons outings engaging in more unconventional narrative structures and plotlines, all the creative juice isn't just going into the couch gags. Heck, for season 34, seven episodes (to date) have eschewed the entire Simpsons opening sequence, including the couch gag! We're now living in a radically different era of Simpsons storytelling, which means the era of lengthy couch gags has been put into storage (or wherever you put old couches...a nice farm upstate?)

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Love Lies Bleeding is a Grimy Treat for Chaotic Gays and Crime Movie Buffs Alike

We stare at our flesh every day. We obsess over every bump, bruise, curve, and anything else on our bodies ceaselessly. Meanwhile, we fixate over the bodies of others we’re attracted to. Their noses, their lips, their arms, they fill our lovesick imaginations with yearning. Whether it's our own fleshy vessels or somebody else's, the human body is always on one's mind in very exaggerated terms. We tend to see our own bodies as hideous while lionizing the bodies of others as aspirational or romantically desirable. Like David Cronenberg and Julia Ducournau before her, writer/director Rose Glass understands this fascination to a tee and that’s why the filmmaking of Love Lies Bleeding is so exceptional. This universal fascination, not to mention the heightened ways we all examine bodies, is filtered in creative musclebound terms throughout this deeply transfixing feature.

Taking place in New Mexico in the 1990s, Lou (Kristen Stewart) is a gym manager who finds herself deeply attracted to bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O'Brian). As we see the two lock eyes for the first time, Glass and cinematographer Ben Fordesman establish the visual motifs of Love Lies Bleeding. Close-up shots of bulging muscles fill the screen as other gym inhabitants jump rope, do lifts with their dumbbells, and push their bodies to the limits. Jackie, it turns out, wants to win a bodybuilding competition more than anything else in the world. Before we even learn this trait about the character, Glass and Fordesman plunge us into her point of view by covering the silver screen in intimate shots of muscular folks pumping iron. Pain and sweat looms large over Jackie's mind. No wonder those elements deeply inform the focus of Love Lies Bleeding's camera in its earliest scenes.

Those striking shots establish the visual norms of a rollicking dark ride of a movie that creates such incredible imagery out of a fascination with the human body. Many of those images come from Lou and Jackie's most physically intimate scenes together. The duo's initial sexual encounters are covered in bright red lighting that perfectly communicates the sense of passion they feel exploring each other's bodies. Better yet, their actions together are deeply idiosyncratic rather than derivative of other cinematic depictions of two women boning. I love the very specific examples of physical passion (like Lou nibbling on Jackie's toes) that emerge when they're lounging together. These small moments of human behavior lend such specificity to Jackie and Lou's relationship.

Of course, Love Lies Bleeding isn't just about dykes boning each other in cramped bedrooms (though that would be a fine movie too!) The script by Glass and Weronika Tofilska radiates plenty of dark tension from the get-go. Lou is running from a traumatic past stemming from her father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), while Jackie's determination to be the best bodybuilder around (aided by her increasing dependence on steroids) brings out some of her most violent tendencies. The level of torment these two have to deal with never seems to end, though for the sake of spoilers, let's leave things vague as to how that torment escalates. Put simply, Love Lies Bleeding is just a fantastically entertaining crime thriller. It does exactly what an entry into this genre should: keep you on the edge of your seat and leave viewers recoiling at the nastiness on the screen.

Fordesman's cinematography perfectly leans into the visual norms of noirs with memorable shots of darkened roads or people in black voids illuminated only by bright red lighting (a previously sensual color in Love Lies Bleeding warped into something ominous). Imagine the vibes and imagery of Blood, Simply mixed in with chaotic bursts of dark humor. The images of Love Lies Bleeding are incredibly striking and they're made all the more remarkable thanks to the assured directing of Rose Glass. She realizes the complicated tone of the proceedings with so much confidence. Love Lies Bleeding can go from genuinely sweet to erotic to unnerving to darkly comical with all the assuredness of a musclebound bodybuilder benching 200 pounds of iron. On paper, the unpredictable tone should render the feature an erratic mess. Instead, adhering to so many cinematic flavors just gives one more bang for their ticket money.

Anchoring the feature is Katy O'Brian as Jackie, who delivers the first major star-making turn in the pantheon of 2024 cinema. O'Brian subverts cinematic norms for how beefy women are "supposed" to behave by portraying Jackie with such endearing genuine affection for Lou. The way she portrays Jackie adorably asking Lou if she's coming to her bodybuilder competitions is just so darn sweet. O'Brian handles the romantic side of Jackie so well that it makes her adeptness at capturing this character's darker shades all the more impactful. Playing opposite O'Brian is Kristen Stewart, who proves especially great here with exquisitely executed comic line deliveries. Two especially hysterical moments in the third act hinge on Stewart delivering conceptually "normal" phrases (one of which consists of a solitary word) in the most bizarre scenarios. Her timing in these two line deliveries is utter perfection and demonstrates how precise Stewart is as a performer.

We're obsessed with our bodies. Chances are, if you like movies with striking visuals and unhinged lesbians like I do, you'll also be obsessed with Love Lies Bleeding. Go forth, reader, and experience what the big screen was made for: messy queer women being gay and doing crime.

Addendum: Composer Clint Mansell (a man most famous for his frequent collaborations with director Darren Aronofsky) has been a bit on autopilot in his film score assignments in recent years. I can't remember any distinctive qualities of his scores for Sharper, Mute, and In the Earth, while his orchestral work on Peacemaker (which he did with fellow composer Kevin Kiner) failed to really stand out against that show's hair metal soundtrack. However, Mansell delivers possibly his strongest work ever as a film composer with his magnificent Love Lies Bleeding score, which just oozes personality and ominous vibes. The most intense scenes of this movie are given further jolts of life thanks to Mansell's compositions, which ride a nice balance between evoking a 1980s setting without letting those influences totally define the personality of his tracks. 

Second Addendum: In Love Lies Bleeding, Anna Baryshnikov plays the lovesick and manipulative queer lady Daisy. At one point, Baryshnikov portrays a giddy Daisy sitting in a diner booth and just rapidly tapping her nails on the table. It's a burst of distinctive human behavior I'll never be able to forget, she's so good in this role.

Monday, March 11, 2024

In Laman's Terms: How Long Can Netflix Keep Up Its Oscars Pursuit?

Netflix CCO Ted Sarandos after being told Netflix will totally finally win a major Oscar at the 96th Academy Awards

Back in November 2015, Netflix CCO Ted Sarandos revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that his greatest dream in the entertainment industry was to have an Oscar winner "thank Netflix" on stage. This comment came a month after Netflix released its first original narrative film, Beasts of No Nation. Two years later, Vanity Fair reported that Sarandos was keen on using lots and lots of Netflix money to pursue Oscars. This streamer was looking for validation in the film industry through Oscar wins, with their moves inspiring headlines like the June 2017 IndieWire piece "Netflix's Next Big Move? Hacking the Oscars" and a February 2019 New York Times piece entitled "In Bid to Conquer Oscars, Netflix Mobilizes Savvy Campaigner and Huge Budget". 

For a moment, it looked like Netflix might become the new powerhouse in the award season landscape. Studios eschewing mid-budget and adult-skewing features in the mid-2010s gave Netflix an easy in to attracting filmmakers boiling down to "we'll make the movies Warner Bros./Paramount/Disney etc. won't make anymore." This is how Netflix ended up with a 2019 award season slate anchored by new Martin Scorsese, Noah Baumbach, Mati Diop, and Fernando Meirelles movies. The COVID-19 pandemic shutting down theaters and forcing everyone to their choices for most of 2020 and 2021 suggested that Netflix might've become the master of the Oscars for the foreseeable future by default.

Cut to the 96th Academy Awards in March 2024 and Netlfix only took home one Oscar win (for Best Live-Action Short for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar) from its 17 nominations. This mirrors the situation at the 94th Academy Awards two years ago when Netflix also won a solitary Oscar (for Best Director for Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog), though that year the streamer had 27 nominations in the mix. This lack of major Oscar wins is something that begs the question...how long can Netflix keep up its costly Oscar pursuits?

Netflix scored its first Oscar nomination back at the 86th Academy Awards (recognizing the best of 2014 cinema) for The Square, a documentary hailing from Egypt told largely in Egyptian Arabic. In hindsight, this nomination is intriguing partially because this ceremony occurred the same year Netflix started releasing original narrative motion pictures. However, starting Netflix's Oscar career with a foreign-language documentary also reflected the kinds of movies and pop culture Netflix has helped to make more mainstream in the last decade. The rise in popularity of foreign-language television shows and documentaries in recent years has been widely attributed to Netflix and other streamers making those projects more accessible to the general public. It's only fitting that the presence of Netflix at the Oscars would begin with a production that fits into both of those molds.

While Netflix quickly became an Oscar fixture in the Best Documentary feature camp (it even scored two nods in that category at the 88th Academy Awards in 2017), getting into the biggest categories at the ceremony was a lot trickier. Only on Netflix's fourth go-round in the award season circuit (for the 2018-2019 season) did the streamer break into the Best Director and Best Picture categories (with Roma). Netflix hasn't lost its grip on the most high-profile Oscar categories in terms of nominations since it broke through. The streamer is now going on six consecutive years of Best Picture nominations and had a four-year Best Director nomination streak that included two wins in the category (though the streamer has been shut out of the category during the last two ceremonies). In the acting categories, Netflix has proven quite skilled at garnering nominations, with 25% of the acting nominees at the 96th Academy Awards belonging to Netflix movie performances. 

Looking over the history of Netflix's Oscar nominations, though, it's shocking how few awards the streamer has managed to actually win over the years. Netflix's spending on award season campaigning is infamous at this point, yet it hasn't yielded many big victories. There are no Best Picture winners in the Netflix library. Only one acting Oscar (for Best Supporting Actress for Laura Dern in Marriage Story) has ever been won by the streamer. Netflix has failed to secure any victories in either of the two Screenplay categories. Best Original Song, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, all these Oscars have eluded Netflix. Meanwhile, companies with way less money to spend (like A24) have been churning out modern Oscar darlings like Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Zone of Interest.

Netflix hasn't been a total bust at the Oscars (it scored seven wins at the Oscars last year across several different categories), but it's clear Netflix hasn't become a titan of the award show. The streamer's struggles to break into the Oscars are a microcosm of how Netflix's original film division just isn't nearly as successful or game-changing as its TV operation. When Netflix started dropping TV shows all at once in a binge-model format, the entire game changed. Meanwhile, Netflix's release strategy of debuting movies on its platform (after maybe two weeks of theatrical play in 30-ish theaters) with no promotion hasn't really become a widely imitated approach. On the contrary, Amazon MGM Studios and Apple TV+ are now embracing theatrical releases as a way to get on people's radar.

Netflix's eschewing of theaters may make Sarandos and other Silicon Valley types feel like "disruptors", but it's clearly hurting their movie operation on many fronts. Netflix can never be home to a big visually lavish spectacle like Dune: Part Two, nor could it ever house slow-burn arthouse hits like Parasite and Poor Things. Plopping movies of all stripes and sizes into an algorithm slush makes it impossible to find those titles or ensure they have a pop culture lifespan longer than an afternoon. This problem undoubtedly is hurting Netflix's chances at the Oscars*. The streamer has the money to get its movies on the radar of Oscar voters, as seen by the 17 nominations it secured this year. However, the company's films don't leave as much of an impact as titles like Oppenheimer or Everything Everywhere All at Once that flourish on the big screen. It's easy to see who will win in the duel between a movie you can watch on an app and a movie you can experience on an IMAX 70mm screen. Plus, Netflix's dedication to releasing as much "content" (God, I hate that word) as possible means that it's hard for individual titles to stand out. May December was one of 2023's best movies. It also could've secured more than one Oscar nod if Netflix's awards team didn't have to divvy up its attention across so many movies.

Anyone with eyes can see that Netflix's movie operation is clearly not working to a comical degree. Sarandos can brag about the supposedly "massive" viewership audience of these original titles all he wants. It doesn't mean anyone in the real world is talking or cares about Rebel Moon. Even the Nielsen viewership chart for the most-watched streaming movies of 2023 reflects this reality, with Netflix only score one slot in the top ten most-watched streaming movies of 2023. Coming in at number ten (behind nine movies that all played in normal theatrical releases first before they went to streaming) was Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, a sequel to a theatrical release film. Given the company's lack of pay transparency, infamously bad labor practices, contempt for the livelihood of movie theaters (and more importantly, all the working-class people whose paychecks depend on those locations), normalization of subpar cinematography standardsand support of transphobic comedians, it's hard not to relish Netflix's struggles both at the Oscars and in the original film space. Once again, tech bros are figuring out that they can't just buy being an artist or talented. Turns out throwing lots of money at the wall can't suddenly turn your studio into Janus Films. Who knew?

Something that fascinates me, though, is that Netflix's future may hinge less on Oscars. I'm sure Sarandos is still harboring his desire to get up on that Oscar stage someday, but Netflix's recent company changes indicate a tweak in its media priorities. Scoring a $5 billion deal to be the home for WWE Raw for ten years already had folks questioning how much money the streamer will be putting into original movies in the future. Then there was the news last week that Netflix will be airing its first-ever live boxing match (between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson). One can expect such star-studded boxing matches to factor heavily into Netflix programming in the future, which will eat away more at the company's finances. When you start seeing Jake Paul programming on Netflix, it's a clear sign that the company is moving away from the days of Atlantics.

Then there's the hiring of Dan Lin as the new head of Netflix's film division, replacing Scott Stuber. Before coming to Netflix, Stuber was one of the leaders of Universal Pictures before becoming a go-to producer at the studio behind Minions. Stuber's hiring indicated Netflix wanted to create partnerships with the sort of prolific and even award season-friendly filmmakers that Stuber always rubbed shoulders with at Universal. Lin, meanwhile, is a producer known for branded genre fare, like the Sherlock Holmes, LEGO, and It movies. Netflix clearly wants Lin to work his magic at elevating the streamer's genre movies from The Gray Man and Heart of Stone to something more resembling Lin hits like The LEGO Movie. Save for producing The Two Popes, Lin isn't well-versed in award-season titans, suggesting that his time at Netflix will be more about mainstream cinema and less about Andrew Dominik's Blonde.

Of course, Netflix may have already been shifting away from the days of Roma/All Quiet on the Western Front/The Power of the Dog long before Dan Lin got hired. As of this writing, Netflix's 2024 slate doesn't have a lot of major dramas that conceptually seem like they could be Oscar fodder beyond The Piano Lesson (the streamer's newest Noah Baumbach and Guillermo del Toro movies won't be ready until 2025). Granted, Netflix purchasing a trio of major films at the 2023 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival does suggest the streamer could eventually buy up a big 2024 Cannes or TIFF title that takes them to the 97th Academy Awards. However, for now, it does look like Netflix's future in its tormented original films division may not be just focused on securing Oscar glory. The middling viewership numbers for Netflix 2023 award season contenders like Maestro, Pain Hustlers, and Fair Play are almost certainly giving the streamer further incentive to focus its cinematic exploits.  Sorry Ted Sarandos, you'll have to wait (possibly forever) to hear someone thank Netflix in a Best Picture acceptance speech.

* Yes, CODA won the Best Picture Oscar after eschewing a traditional theatrical release. It launched in the wonky year of 2021, when theatrical release patterns were still in flux. Plus, Apple TV+ has switched over to prioritizing theatrical runs.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

In Laman's Terms: The Recent Dune Reboots That Never Happened

OK, now imagine this image came from a Dune movie directed by the Taken guy and it's Alex Pettyfer and Adelaide Kane playing Paul and Chani, respectively 

Today, the modern Dune movies have become as synonymous with director Denis Villeneuve as the Dark Knight trilogy was intertwined with Christopher Nolan or Barbie is with Greta Gerwig. It’s not just that Villeneuve pulled off this adaptation that seemed impossible, but like Nolan and Gerwig, he delivered a big-budget blockbuster that also felt like it could only come from the mind of one particular auteur. In the wake of Villeneuve’s increasingly famous take on the Dune mythology in cinema, it’s easy to sometimes forget about the other filmed adaptations of Dune, like David Lynch’s 1984 movie or that Syfy miniseries at the dawn of the 21st century.

Even beyond those two pre-2021 projects, though, Hollywood has also tried gallantly many times to turn this project into a big blockbuster. Of course, turning Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi text into a cohesive movie is not an easy task…just ask Alejandro Jodorowsky! In the 21st century, countless studios tried their hand at turning Dune into a motion picture before Villeneuve finally cracked the code and got this production off the ground. Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya turned out to be perfect choices to anchor Dune…but how else could a modern-day Dune movie have looked? What other ambitions for a Dune feature were once set to flow into movie theaters?

The Earliest 21st Century Stabs at “Dune” Movies

At the very end of 2007, news broke on the prospect of Dune finally riding back into movie theaters more than two decades after Lynch's Dune movie debuted. For context on how long ago this was, the FirstShowing news piece about this development begins with the writer noting that they'd rather be exploring their new HD DVD player than writing up news about a 21st century Dune adaptation! This version of the text was supposed to be directed by Peter Berg, with the filmmaker describing himself as a massive fan of the book who planned to make a spectacularly expansive adaptation of the source material. At the time, Berg’s inaugural foray into big-budget blockbuster cinema (Hancock) was still months away from release, so it was still unclear to the general public if the man behind Friday Night Lights could handle a VFX-heavy feature.

By March 2008, Berg was officially onboard as the director and the project had a studio home: Paramount Pictures. While Universal Pictures had released the original Lynch Dune, Paramount was now eagerly holding onto Berg’s Dune as a movie that could keep up the studio’s blockbuster movie momentum. Thanks to deals and purchases it had made with outfits like Marvel Studios and DreamWorks SKG, Paramount was riding high in the late 2000s on projects like Transformers, Iron Man, and others. Paramount wanted to keep the good box office times rolling and that meant taking a chance on adapting a source material others may have found impenetrable.  By October 2009, though, Berg had departed the project due to disagreements over budget with Paramount (who wanted to keep costs under $175 million). At the time, the two candidates Paramount was most eagerly eyeballing to take over the proceedings were Neill Blomkamp and Neil Marshall, the former of whom had just helmed the lucrative Distinct 9.

In the wake of Berg’s departure came inarguably the darker period of development for a modern-day Dune reboot: the moment Pierre Morel was slated to direct the feature. Interestingly, Morel and final Dune director Denis Villeneuve are both of French ancestry (the former being purely French, the other being French-Canadian), but the two filmmakers couldn't be more different otherwise. Morel got big in the late 2000s after helming Taken, a project that not only catapulted Liam Neeson to action movie stardom but also put this EuropaCorp veteran on the radar of all Hollywood studios. Well-known for his action films that emphasize dim lighting, “gritty” realism, and sloppy editing, Morel made sense to direct Dune from a cynical studio executive perspective (“Taken made money! Dune from the Taken guy will also make money!”) It was an incoherent choice from all other perspectives.

The Demise of This Original “Dune” Movie

By the end of 2010, things were already looking slippery for this new iteration of Dune once Morel was approached to direct a proposed blockbuster movie adaptation of Ouija. This filmmaker clearly wasn’t narrowing his focus solely on Arrakis. This made it no surprise that Paramount flat-out abandoned the project by March 2011, despite spending four years trying to make a modern-day Dune blockbuster work. At the time, it was revealed that Paramount's grip on the film rights to Dune had expired and that there was initially potential interest in taking pieces of this Dune movie to another studio movie. However, the prospects for a Dune resurrection were considered bleak even back in 2011.

In hindsight, the loss of those rights can be chalked up to Paramount going through an incredibly turbulent time at the dawn of the 2010s that would spell doom for the studio for much of the ensuing decade. Though Paramount loomed large over all other studios at the domestic box office in 2011, it had alienated many of the players behind its biggest hits. Paranormal Activity 3 producer Jason Blum had a movie deal at Universal Pictures. DreamWorks SKG had moved over to Disney/Touchstone Pictures. The Mouse House had also bought up Marvel Studios, which supplied two big hits for Paramount in 2011. If Paramount circa. 2011 couldn’t keep these massive titans on the studio lot, what hope did an oddball property like Dune have of sticking around at the label?

It also didn’t help that Dune was clearly a property Paramount first got attached to in 2007 because of the biggest hits of the early 2000s. Even as late as 2007, features trying to replicate the success of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings were common. Every studio wanted to reach into the past for a beloved series of books that could be translated into a lucrative saga of blockbusters. Paramount totally saw Dune as its key to getting in on the Lord of the Rings action. By March 2011, though, Hollywood’s priorities shifted to making Twilight knock-offs (And would morph once again a year later into producing pastiches of The Hunger Games). Dune no longer fit the mold of the default blockbusters Hollywood wanted to mimic, which likely made it easy for Paramount to say goodbye to the property.

It would take nearly six years after Paramount’s Dune movie fell apart for Legendary Pictures to secure the film rights to this text and pave the road for the Villeneuve’s version of the property. In the years in between, there was nary a whisper of other potential Dune reboots, with the density of this source material likely petrifying financiers from giving this property another chance on the big screen. All that waiting around turned out to be the right move given all the acclaim that’s greeted Villeneuve’s Dune. Plus, taking things slow and steady with this property saved the world from witnessing visions of Dune from the directors of Hancock and Taken!

Saturday, March 9, 2024

In Laman's Terms: Hugh Jackman's Musical Opening Is Still One of the Best Oscars Moments of the 21st Century

The opening segment of the Academy Awards is often tough to crack, but some years, it feels like the people behind this show aren’t even trying. This is particularly true in the modern world (read: 21st-century Oscar ceremonies), where the Academy Awards often seem negatively daunted by the legacy of this show. This means that the people behind this program produce opening sequences that just seem either too derivative of the past or too quick to leap into weird mean-spirited meta-commentary. The latter phenomenon could be seen in all the cursed musical numbers from host Seth MacFarlane that kicked off the 85th Academy Awards, while the 83rd Academy Awards saw hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco strolling through famous 2010 movies like they were the second coming of Billy Crystal.

Even more restrained stabs at reimagining how the Oscars can start end up going nowhere interesting. Just look at the 93rd Academy Awards, which began with a lengthy shot of Regina King just walking through Union Station and to the program's stage. Where’s the pizzazz and imagination in all of these sequences? What material is being served up right away to the viewer that’ll keep them glued to the screen for the three-hour spectacle that is to come? Thankfully, there is one Oscar ceremony that knew how to kick things off perfectly. Hugh Jackman's hysterical opening musical number from the 81st Academy Awards in February 2009 was a thing to behold...and a masterwork in how to begin an Oscars ceremony just right!

What Was Hugh Jackman’s Oscar Opening Segment?

Given that Hugh Jackman’s famous for his exploits in the world of live musical theater, it’s no surprise that he’d kick off his gig as a live entertainer at the Academy Awards with a song-and-dance routine. In an inspired move, though, the song that kicked off the 81st Academy Awards was informed by real-world tragedies happening outside the Kodak Theatre. The 2008 economic recession had hit America devastatingly hard in the months directly preceding this show., Jobs had been lost. Budgets were tighter than ever. Unemployment was skyrocketing. Done poorly, the 81st Academy Awards making jokes related to this economic crisis could’ve been tone-deaf and staggeringly miscalculated.

Shockingly, though, Jackman didn’t crumble under the pressure. Instead, he was at the center of an inspired musical number that saw him putting together cardboard props and raggedy sets under a “tight budget” inspired by the recession. The result was a set-piece that wasn’t ignorant of the hardships of reality but also didn’t trivialize them. Plus, the concept of a “low-budget” Oscars opening ceremony led to ingenious visual gags (like a series of crude dolls used to represent Benjamin Button at various stages of his life) that were unlike anything else in the history of the Oscars. This wasn’t a musical ditty that felt like it was retreading past ground, this was something fresh that could only have existed circa. January 2009.

The writing of the musical number was also incredibly solid, a trick accomplished by the murderer’s row of outstanding writers assembled for this piece (including Ben Schwartz and Dan Harmon!) Many award show musical numbers are cute, but have lyrics that rarely rise above that level. Jackman’s song was actually hilarious, particularly the verse where he talks about how “I haven’t seen The Reader,” an inspired way to get around talking about such a dark movie in a bubbly musical number. Actual wit abounded in this tune on so many fronts and made it something you could hum and titter at in equal measures.

Best of all, it was a musical number that reflected a passion for the movies nominated that year. The cardboard props were meant to reflect the economic realities of early 2009, but they also reflected a ramshackle endearing love for cinema reminiscent of the “Sweded” movies in Be King Rewind or the “series finale” at the center of Brigsby Bear. When you don’t have infinite studio resources at your disposal, passion can carry a low-budget endeavor. That kind of passion came through at the opening of 81st Academy Awards, which suggested that a love for movies would endure no matter what economic restrictions were in place. Having Jackman finish off the number by belting out passionate long notes about how he’s, in many ways, all of these Oscar-nominated movies (aren’t we all?) was a great capper to the song that conveyed so much enthusiasm for the films this program was recognizing. Compare that to the detached Jo Koy or Ricky Gervais monologues that kicked off modern Golden Globes ceremonies, for instance, and it becomes clear which of these entertainers knows how to star in an award show.

Hugh Jackman Never Returning to the Oscars is a Good Thing

Not only have future Oscars failed to deliver opening numbers equally enjoyable, but this is also, to date, the only appearance of Jackman as a host at this award show. Jackman didn’t run the goodwill generated from his 81st Academy Awards appearance into the ground with endless further hosting gigs that tried to replicate the lightning-in-a-bottle success he got the first time around. Instead, Jackman’s Oscar hosting stint seems to have been a one-and-done affair. Some years, when the Oscars are really lacking energy, it’s easy to wish Jackman would come back and spruce things up again. However, in the grand scheme of things, it’s good that Jackman didn’t overstay his welcome or tarnish the memory of this exquisite Oscar opener.

It’s also become even easier to appreciate in hindsight how deftly Jackman and the crew behind the 81st Academy Awards managed to reflect the inescapable brutalities of reality in the middle of a bubbly awards show. You don’t want to capsize the zippy atmosphere of the Oscars, but also, it’s foolish if you don’t acknowledge the harsh realities viewers themselves can’t escape. That’s a tough balance to walk, but subsequent Oscar ceremonies have often eschewed even trying to execute that balance! Most egregiously, the 93rd Academy Awards presented an Oscars that acted like the world didn’t shut down because of COVID-19 13 months prior. Nobody on-camera ever wore face masks, while the Academy instituted a strict policy forbidding actors from accepting awards virtually.

In hindsight, such mandates were clearly made to just make the Oscars look “normal” for viewers and advertisers. In execution, all they did was make the Academy Awards feel creepily detached from the realities of living in the middle of a health crisis that had taken countless lives. Such gross miscalculations make the miracle of Jackman’s 81st Academy Awards opening number all the easier to appreciate. This performer and the show’s writers didn’t run from real-world topics that could be considered “buzzkills”, they ran towards them and found inspired idiosyncratic sources of humor in the process. Leaning into “unpleasant” real-world events only made the 81st Academy Awards opening number more entertaining, not less!

Jackman's performance is even easier to appreciate thanks to subsequent Oscar hosts, who haven't come anywhere close to his level of showmanship or sense of fun. Not everyone who’s hosted the Oscars since Jackman has been a dud, but folks like Seth MacFarlane and James Franco certainly solidified themselves as all-time bad hosts. Meanwhile, folks like Neil Patrick Harris disappointed compared to the potential they carried while someone like Jimmy Kimmel (who’s gearing up for his fourth hosting gig across eight ceremonies) is a painless presence but he's not really memorable as a host unless he’s skewering Matt Damon (a gag he carried over from his late-night show). Hugh Jackman’s work would’ve been exceptional under any circumstances, but subsequent underwhelming Oscar hosts make his virtues as an entertainer easier than ever to appreciate.

Hugh Jackman’s 83rd Academy Awards Opener Was Truly a Golden Moment

Subsequent Oscar ceremonies have inundated audiences with snark, endless homages to past Oscar hosts, and Amy Schumer. These negative qualities have often been so unpleasant to watch that they make one yearn for the Academy Awards to ditch hosts altogether! Hugh Jackman’s work kicking off the 83rd Academy Awards, though, showed off how good an Oscar host can be. These figures can come into this award show and get the ball rolling with lots of razzle-dazzle, wit, and an infectious love for movies that reminds us all why we tune into this ceremony year after year. The dismal track record of post-2009 Oscar hosts suggests those qualities may be sparse in modern entertainers, but at least we all got to feel them once more when Jackman belted out his opening number.

Since this 2009 Oscars stint, Jackman’s gone on to play Wolverine a further six times (a seventh is on the way with Deadpool & Wolverine), headlined movies like Bad Education, and starred in various stage and movie musicals. He’s done a lot of interesting work…but this 83rd Academy Awards opening number may be his greatest work as a performer in show business. Not only did Jackman have the chops and great writers to execute a winning opening musical number, but that year’s bevy of Oscar-nominated films provided ample material for great visual gags. It was the perfect confluence of events that resulted in an Oscar opening number like no other…and one we’re unlikely to see replicated in effectiveness anytime soon.

Friday, March 8, 2024

Dune: Part Two Lets the Spice and Great Filmmaking Flow



Back in March and April 2020, I'd awaken in the morning and just lie there, considering the way the COVID-19 pandemic was impacting everything in the world. Being who I am, I also considered whether or not movie theaters would ever reopen and if they did, would there be wonderful films still playing in those cinematic cathedrals? Was everything just going to get sent to the Netflix algorithm black hole? Would filmmakers have any more inclinations to make big grand swings in the realm of filmmaking? Such queries left me overwhelmed under the covers in those unpredictable months. Cut to 2024 and I got to watch Dune: Part Two on a massive IMAX screen. While certainly nowhere near the best new release movie I've seen since the pandemic shut down theaters (that honor goes to Drive My Car), Dune: Part Two is one of the most reassuring post-March 2020 theatrical titles I've witnessed on the big screen. 

Visual imaginations that can only be properly rendered on a gigantic silver screen are not dead. Fresh unforgettable images and performances that belong to a new generation are being realized. The cinematic cycle is continuing on, thank goodness. Even as someone who had gripes with the original Dune movie, writer/director Denis Villeneuve has done applaud-worthy work on Dune: Part Two. With this follow-up, he's crafted an immersive blockbuster that would register as something special even if it didn't feel extra reassuring after movie theaters nearly vanished forever.

Dune: Part Two already gets a leg up on its predecessor by kicking off its runtime with immediately compelling material. The original Dune could get bogged down in too much set-up and exposition, whereas Dune: Chapter Two kicks things off with a tense sequence depicting Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet), Chani (Zendaya), Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), and other Fremen fighters trying to evade newly-arriving Harkonnen soldiers. The scope of Dune: Part Two as an overall movie is massive, but here in this opening sequence, Villeneuve ingratiates audiences back into the desert world of Arakis with a compelling claustrophobic suspense sequence. Our heroes are pinned down in the desert, desperate to evade being noticed by their enemies. They're not looking to destroy a planet at this moment, they just want to survive to see another day. Cinematographer Greig Fraser and editor Joe Walker opt to capture their plight in a restrained number of frames, which really lets the tension bubble and boil.

After this gangbuster opening, Dune: Part Two gets underway with a plot concerning Paul grappling with the widespread perception among many of the native Fremen people that he could be the prophesized Chosen One figure known as Lisan al-Gaib. His grappling with the idea of embracing this mythic status in Fremen society comes as several different parties begin to descend on Arakis to exploit it for their own means. The devious Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) sends his nephew Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) to Arakis to wipe out any possible rebellion on the planet while Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken) is keeping a close eye on this planet and its developments. Paul now has so many eyes on him. Under all that pressure, he could become a hero for the ages...or possibly something much more human...

We get a lot of big-budget movies these days thanks to studios shifting their focus almost exclusively towards tentpoles and streamers spending every penny they have to make "real" movies. Unfortuantely, this has just resulted in a glut of costly movies like The Gray Man or Argylle that leave you wondering where all the cash went. These films aim for overwhelming ecapism, but merely just remind viewers of cheap filmmaking. Denis Villeneuve and company, by contrast, have crafted with Dune: Part Two something that earns its grand scope. It harkens back to mid-20th century epics or Lord of the Rings with its transportive qualities rather than The Tomorrow War or any other modern-day tentpole schlock.

The realms on-screen are translated from Frank Herbert's text with such lived-in detail and, best of all, a welcome sense of showmanship. Villeneuve loves darker realism in his works, but he's also happy to indulge in the most preposterous elements of the Dune universe and especially the most outlandish visual possibilities of this domain. The evil Harkonnen planet alone is a wondrous sight, a gloriously monochromatic realm that asks "what if Fritz Lang had made Star Wars?" Grand touches in this space like fireworks that just shoot off what look like dark ink blots into the sky are such terrific stylized flourishes. You won't see those kinds of images in just any film and they speak to the culture of death and misery these beings have immersed themselves in.

Dune: Part Two's maximalist sensibilities extend to deeply committed performances by an outstandingly stacked ensemble cast (Javier Bardem and his comic hops are the MVP of the entire film) as well as Hans Zimmer's incredibly pronounced score. I just wanted Zimmer's orchestral compositions to wash over me, they're so entertainingly brash and brimming with personality. There's so much passion emanating off these tracks. Combining them with the striking images on-screen makes Dune: Chapter Two a welcome example of blockbuster cinema that tantilizes the eyes as well as the ears. It also makes a great case for more modern blockbuster scores that aren't afraid to take risks and make themselves noticed. No more of those Lorne Balfe or Benjamin Wallfisch scores that just fade into the backgrounds of the movies they inhabit! More scores infused with Zimmer's Dune: Part Two gusto! 

Even with all these positive attributes, there are nitpicks and qualms I have with Dune: Part Two in some respects, including some aspects of its racial politics and certain supporting characters that could've used an extra scene or two to get further fleshed out. But, as director Joel Schumacher once said, "no one pays to see under the top," and Dune: Part Two certainly is a reminder of that. This feature delivers where it coutns in conjuring up all the wondrous oversized imagery and breathtaking scope you could want from this kind of movie. I once feared movies like this would never get made or released again theatrically in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Boy was I glad I was wrong.