Joel Siegel's the Morning After
It's not yet Memorial Day, but the summer movie season is already in full swing.
May 21, 2007 — -- I still didn't like it. Neither did more than half the critics polled on rottentomatoes.com. But "Shrek the Third" opened to the third biggest weekend of all time; last summer's "Pirates 2" and last fortnight's "Spidey 3" are the only two films with bigger opening weekends.
A couple of things: It's a family film, it plays off the franchise, it was very well marketed and, perhaps most important to past and future grosses, it's short. 91 minutes.
In fact, one blogger reported one of the marketing executives suggested an ad campaign based on the line: "Hey, Parents, It's Only 91 Minutes Long!"
He or she was kidding, but everyone in the room knew the film was a stinker.
Other bloggers are curling their thongs wondering why Jeffrey Katzenberg, over in Cannes, was predicting a $90 million weekend when all the tracking showed well over a hundred.
Why? 'Cause Katzenberg is a very smart man. It's what's called a "win-win" in the trade.
If he predicts 90 million and it does a hundred million, he's a winner. If the world discovers the film isn't in the same league as its two predecessors and it only does 80 or 90, he's a winner.
The total: $122 million.
He's a real winner.
SPIDEY 3
DVDs: 'VENUS'
But early into the film is one of the best pieces of acting I saw last year. O'Toole plays an aging actor. (A lesser critic would say, "And he's spent virtually his entire life preparing for this role.") Walking across the Thames he does about 30 seconds of Hamlet's soliloquy for the young woman. He doesn't start with "To be or not…" so it takes a few seconds to understand what he's saying. But it is transporting, it is genius, it is a great, great actor making magic.
A NICE MICHAEL MOORE STORY
"For several years now, Jim Kenefick has been railing against the Oscar-winning director on Moorewatch.com. Recently, Kenefick wrote about the difficulty he was having paying his wife's medical bills…
"'Someone e-mailed me and asked if an 'anonymous benefactor' could offer to pay my first year's premiums -- $12,000.'"
Rush and Malloy have discovered that Michael Moore is that no longer anonymous benefactor. The check cleared.
Kenefick is certain Moore made the gift, Rush and Malloy report, "just to publicize (his new film) 'Sicko.'" But he kept the money.
I'm not a fan of Michael Moore's, not at all. I learned that reporting, that doing a TV news story, that making a documentary is, by definition, an uncovering or a discovery of truths. Michael Moore's alleged "documentaries" are done to reinforce his prejudices.
In "Bowling for Columbine," he took terrible advantage of Charlton Heston who was beginning to show symptoms of Alzheimer's. And he blindsided Dick Clark with a series of questions Clark was not expecting and made Clark look like a fool. It seemed to me Moore just happened to find himself in a place where Dick Clark was, and busted in, camera rolling. But Clark not only has nothing to do with Moore's story, Clark also happens to be one of the nicest people I've met.
I'd been on television, working for WCBS-TV, all of five months when my assignment was to cover New Year's Eve at Times Square for the 11. Our location, atop a rather flimsy movie marquee on about 45th and Broadway. I was sharing the location with Dick Clark who could not have been nicer or more helpful.
I hope the Kenefick story is true and I hope there was no hidden agenda.
And I hope Mrs. Kenefick, not identified in the piece, is doing well.