Gangs of New York
I havent had the time to see Gangs of New York yet (and probably wont before its general release) so all I have to go on is the buzz. While everyone agrees that Daniel Day Lewis is great in the role (and has already clenched an Oscar nomination), most people seem to say that the movie has far too much meaningless violence for general public and at $160 million its way too expensive for the art house crowd. Miramax pulled out all of their tricks to get all the year-end critical awards it could and that effort has failed completely. If their arm twisting couldnt work on their own captive audience, its not going to work on the general public.
From what Ive seen I think this movie takes some very inappropriate liberties with the facts. One of my strong pet peeves is movies that have to change reality in order to make their fashionably correct political points. Given the mood of the country (which the Hollywood-New York axis still doesnt understand), I think the movie wont find a large audience.
The Lord of the Rings
Peter Jackson spent several years developing LOTR using money from Miramax. In fact Disney spent about $20 million dollars on pre-production costs. When Eisner refused to fund the production of two films and instead ordered them to make a single low budget film of the entire trilogy, Mr. Jackson struck a deal with the Weinsteins. He was granted a few weeks to find a buyer for the film. The buyer had to reimburse Miramax for the development costs and then agree to cut a deal with the Weinsteins personally. Typical Hollywood blackmail. Mr. Jackson found a receptive audience with New Line who agreed to the terms. The brothers were given producer credits and a cut of the profit. This means that while the boys are rolling in Hobbit dough, Disney is left holding nothing but dreams about what might have been.
This kind of deal is all too common in Hollywood. While the guilds strictly regulate who is given a director or a writer credit, there are no rules for who can be called a producer. So its become a way of siphoning money from studios. Girlfriends, managers, agents, playthings are routinely are given a credit and a check. One of the few good things that Disney has done with ABC is to curtail this on TV shows. It was common practice to give actors managers some sort of producer credit and $20,000+ per episode as part of the deal to sign the actor. The managers dont do a thing on the show; it was just a legal cover for the pay-off.
Before you see The Two Towers
A few comments for people planning to see the new movie: the films have been created in exactly the same way that J.R.R. Tolkein wrote the books its one long work that has to be artificially broken into three pieces. The Two Towers isnt really a stand-alone movie; its simply the middle part of the longer film. The action picks up and continues straight ahead. There are no last week on
clips at the beginning or any pauses where the characters sit down talk about what has happened (of course you remember the incident in the forest when you
).
Do yourself the favor and watch The Fellowship of the Ring before you head out to see The Two Towers. Better yet, watch the DVD extended version of Fellowship. This cut is half an hour longer than the theatrical release and includes many character moments and plot points that were removed to make Fellowship work better as a theatrical experience. The two films flow seamlessly together and having a fresh memory of the first makes the second one work all the better.
