It's almost Christmas time, which means it's time to go to the movies. I'm very excited to check out a few movies over the break, including The King's Speech, True Grit, The Fighter, Tron, and maybe a second look at Black Swan. We'll see about the last one, but the first four are guaranteed. I can only hope they live up to or past the hype. But as the holiday approaches, I wanted to share my bafflement at the mere existence of a few pieces of entertainment, including one notable exception that is making huge news while being on the stage.
How does a movie like Yogi Bear exist? I was listening to the awesome Comedy Death-Ray Radio podcast earlier this week, and one of the many guests for the show's Christmas episode was Andy Daly, a sly and funny improviser who may be best known for his role on Eastbound and Down. Daly was playing the character of a grizzled old stage veteran known for directing the Rockette show every year in New York, and squeezed a lot of blood from the "I'm a horny old man" stone. At the end of the show, as it always goes, the guests plugged whatever shows, movies, and so on they would appear in the near future. Daly's character ceded his time to Daly, and he said "Go see Yogi Bear," but for one reason or another, was unable to say it without laughing. That moment was, I'm guessing, going to be the funniest thing about the movie. (Also worth noting is that he said on Twitter that he's fine if people see it ironically.)
No one is going to see Yogi Bear expecting a classic of film, or even a classic of the genre. But why is it being made? "To make money, Josh. Did you just become aware of this?" Yes, I know, movies need to make money. That's the point. Who thought this movie would ever make money? "Let's see, how do we get the kids into the movies this Christmas?" "Well, how about turning Yogi Bear into a movie?" "Yogi Bear? The cartoon from the 1960s?" "Yeah, and let's get Dan Aykroyd to do the voice! Worked out so well for Bill Murray and Garfield!" What kid knows who Yogi Bear is? What adult is going to want to see a movie filled with artless pratfalls, scatalogical humor, and shitty computer animation? That this movie has made over 20 million dollars speaks to how bored people are that they can't just see something else, or not see a movie.
One can only hope for the same low grosses for Gulliver's Travels. Here again is a movie based on a product most kids aren't aware of. Some kids might know the image of a regular-sized man being tied to the ground by very tiny people, but that's about it. I give Fox a tiny bit of credit here, though. The executives must have been aware of this, so they got Jack Black as the lead and updated the story to modern times. Black may not be as daring and sneaky as he was a decade ago, but he's made lots of money in family-friendly films. But does anyone need to see this movie? The studio is clearly aware of how bad the movie is going to do, by moving the release date from December 22 (you know, today) to Christmas Day, giving them only a two-day weekend. Whatever else happens, the movie's not going to break out huge this weekend, because it'll have two days. There's a chance--small, mind you--that the crazy rush known as Black Swan will do better.
Whoever thought Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark was a good idea? Bringing Julie Taymor back to Broadway to direct a musical is a good idea. Bringing Bono and the Edge to write music and lyrics for a Broadway show is a good idea. Hell, I'd be willing to say that making a musical out of Spider-Man is...a unique idea. I still don't think it'd be any more interesting had the show not been plagued by myriad issues, injuries, etc., but the idea is somewhat different than everything else. But it's time to stop. When you have to implement a safety plan that consists of more than one person making sure that a harness holding a grown man over a 30-foot precipice more than 2 weeks into the show being performed for paying audiences, you have some serious problems. The problem isn't that the safety plan isn't actually a safety plan, it's that no one realized that, yes, having lots of people confirm that a guy won't break his ribs and do so in front of people with camera phones is a really smart and obvious idea.
Even if this was the first incident, how could this "plan" not have been put into effect already? And since this WASN'T the first incident, how did no one decide to go down the route of extra caution? On the one hand, reading people freak out that someone is going to die while performing the show is a bit silly. But then again, when you read about broken wrists, concussions, broken ribs, and internal bleeding, maybe there's something to the freak-out. Someone, obviously, could die. Reading Taymor's official statement about the injury from Monday night just makes me scratch my head; is she not aware of how serious an issue this is? The show's already ridiculously expensive, and you gotta think that a lot of people buying tickets now are almost doing so just so they can say they saw the eighth stuntman break his neck.
Isn't that a great way to wish you a happy holiday? Of course not, but seriously, have a happy holiday, whichever one you celebrate. I hope you get lots of cool presents.
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