Comments on: Just in case Santa got it wrong

By: Scott David Hamilton

Scott David Hamilton — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:09:01 +0000

For the next buying advice, be sure to mention that the Fleischer Superman cartoons are coming out in a set from WB, with a couple docus.

By: Scott David Hamilton

Scott David Hamilton — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:07:53 +0000

Smith’s most profitable in turns of percentage return was Chasing Amy, which cost $250,000 total and made $2 mil. Clerks cost about $200,000 all told, I think Mallrats was $2.5 mil, and after that most of his movies have been in the $10-15 range, with Zack and Miri costing more for Seth Rogen. So not a whole lot of money, especially if someone like Harvey Weinstein likes you. Sounds, though, like Smith has broken up with the big H, so we’ll see what happens next.

By: Blake Matthews

Blake Matthews — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:50:51 +0000

Although with Kevin Smith, I can’t imagine that his movies, which all seem to make 30 million, cost a whole lot to make.

By: MatthewF

MatthewF — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:36:36 +0000

They do make most of their profit on DVD, but hollywood is still very box office focussed when it comes to judging movie success (and just American Box off too, if the Golden Compass had made $300 mill in the US rather than ‘overseas’ you can bet we’d see a sequel to that). Having said that, I’m sure there are some film makers who owe their continuing ability to make films to their DVD market (I’m looking at you Kevin Smith).

By: houseinrlyeh

houseinrlyeh — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:24:20 +0000

I always thought these films make their profits mostly in their DVD incarnations – the Long Tail of film distribution. Especially when tactics like the Grindhouse chop-up let them sell the same film twice. I still doubt that there’s much of a profit in it.

By: MatthewF

MatthewF — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:18:56 +0000

I don’t think they do make a profit especially, certainly Grindhouse was chopped up and re-edited as soon as possible. I think that they’re made by people who grew up watching 70s exploitation and now have sufficient power in the industry to reinvent their childhood (I’d chuck ‘Doomsday’ on that list too, the Neil Marshall film). what then happens is that everyone acts surprised when a $70 million dollar remake of a $3 million dollar film doesn’t do blockbuster business. these films were cheap because the audience was small, and only with a very few exceptions did they break out (texas chainsaw, Mad Max II).

By: lyzard

lyzard — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:30:24 +0000

Do these films turn a decent profit on DVD?

I wouldn’t put Shark(s) In Venice in the same category as the others; but otherwise, you’ve got an interesting spread there of the kinds of tribute films being made, from outright parody to homage. (I don’t know if it answers your question, but I own two out the ones you cite. Guess which??) I enjoy many of these films, but I’m not sure they’re not another manifestation of the unoriginality plague that seems to be afflicting movie-making in general.

By: lyzard

lyzard — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:45:30 +0000

The ending is certainly left very ambiguous and disturbing, and the film overall is amazingly cruel, but that’s beside the point that I was making, which is that in the middle of a total maelstrom of misery and dysfunction, you have James Franciscus, Karl Malden and Cinzia de Carolis moving towards making themselves into a surrogate family. It’s unexpected and touching, particularly in context.

The other positive relationship in Argento is in Phenomena, between Donald Pleasence and his laser-guided, razor-weilding helper chimpanzee.

As it happens, that is exactly the other one I meant. Seriously.

(Actually, my favourite relationship is the one between Donald Pleasence and Jennifer Connolly: I love the way you can see her relax, and her performance improve, over their scenes together; it’s obvious where she was getting her direction from, and it wasn’t from Argento.)

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:06:33 +0000

Might be just my copy, but in the “calling out to her uncle” part it appears (or it’s at least possible) that the voice is only in Malden’s head (strange echo-y effect to it and far too cheerful in a rather inappropriate way), Malden’s character seems more distraught than relieved and we never get to see the girl. Been a long time since I’ve seen the movie, but as I recall, the killer would’ve had plenty of time to kill her after he stabs James Franciscus (another character who might or might not have died).

By: Baron Scarpia

Baron Scarpia — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:33:48 +0000

Oops – just to clarify, the killer does announce that he has killed her, but that appears just to be to spite the heroes, since he’s been caught.