Year in Review: Best LGBT Characters

year in review part 3 of several

With 2010 about to wrap, let's do a top ten list albeit a very specific one. Let's make like Barbara Walters and choose The Most Fascinating (Fictional, LGBT) People. Barbara obviously uses a different criteria than "fascinating" in her annual roundup. Hers seems closer to "constantly in the news /has overworked publicist"  and our choices are also debatable. The ranking is somewhat arbitrary. It's a glorified excuse to talk about people, in this case the LGBT characters who were on movie screens in 2010. So let's get to it.

The Invisible Man
This following list is dedicated to the openly gay "Chris Hughes" in THE SOCIAL NETWORK, portrayed by Patrick Mapel (pictured left with Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg in the movie). Because this excellent movie chooses to focus so tightly on its intellectual property lawsuits, fraternity "punch" lust, and that central squabbling sextet of Ivy League straight boys (Zuckerberg, Saverin, Narendra, Parker, and "the Winklevii"), it apparently didn't have much room for diversity; the women and the gays involved in the Facebook story don't get much attention.

Read the list of the year's best gay characters at my weekly column @ Towleroad featuring The Kids Are All Right, I Love You Phillip Morris, La Mission and more.

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Distant Relatives: Metropolis and District 9

Robert here, with my series Distant Relatives, where we look at two films, (one classic, one modern) related through a common theme and ask what their similarities and differences can tell us about the evolution of cinema.

Upstairs/Downstairs

They tell bird owners to avoid putting your new pet in one of those high hanging Tweety-bird cages.  See, if the bird spends most of his time positioned above you, he'll develop a sense of superiority and will be impossible to teach and train.  Just in case the overworld/underworld concept started to seem like a common and cliched metaphor, it doesn't hurt to remember that it's a fact of nature. Those who are above see themselves as greater than those who are below.  And if it transcends animal species here on Earth then why not throughout the universe?  Which is why it makes so much sense that the aliens of District 9 couldn't be allowed to live in their space ship towering high in the sky but had to be moved onto the ground and given the nickname "prawn" after an animal that mucks about far below us humans.  Metropolis classically uses the conceit and creates a reality where the workers live below the ground while the aristocracy lives in skyscrapers high above, and extends it to Biblical dimension, with workers being gobbled up in fantasy by the demon Moloch, rich people cavorting around overworld places called the "Eternal Gardens" and the central skyscraper the "New Tower of Babel."

Like much science fiction that comments on social justice issues, we're presented in both films with evil corporatedom.  In Metropolis, Joh Frederson is the founder and autocratic force behind the city.  In District 9 the wonderfully generically named Multinational United is the military company tasked with relocating the slum based aliens (because surely no government wants to do it).  In both cases, someone from deep within this corporate atmosphere will penetrate the "underworld" and come to an understanding, and in both cases it's a privileged son (or son-in-law).  At the front, Freder and Wikus van de Merwe seem like they couldn't be more different.  Frederson is a playboy and van de Merwe is a schlub (who hasn't even the decency to have been born into his luck) but both men are fated to bridge the gap between two very different worlds.  It's no surprise given their strength or weakness of personality that Freder ventures down into the unknown because of passion and cunning.  Van der Merwe goes because he's told.

Hero/Villain

Both District 9 and Metropolis are burdened with heroes that we, the audience, aren't likely to want to identify with.  Metropolis gets around this by making its protagonist display the heroism and moral fortitude that we'd all like to believe we'd have given his situation.  He acts out of love and then out of common decency.  Van der Merwe is a stooge and when he grows a conscience it's only in the most extreme of situations, when he is forced to literally live in the skin of the "prawns" and witness the inhumanity toward them.  Perhaps because in modern times we simply can't believe a man of business would become a moral champion without being dragged into it kicking or screaming.  Perhaps it's because audiences no longer identify with unapologetic heroes (even superheros these days are painted with serious amounts of pathos and self-doubt).  However, no one wants to identify with a racist.  District 9 director Blomkamp cleverly provides us with a tough road to tolerance, making his aliens disgusting, unsettling, and violent creatures.  Van der Merwe does eventually capture our sympathies because we see in him, not immediate heroism, but the capacity to learn and change.  Our standards for heroism have changed in eighty years, or just gotten more realistic.  And eventually, Van der Merwe too acts out of love.

The original bio-technology

 It's interesting that while both men are eventually compelled by the injustices they see, there is always that underlying compulsion to attain or re-attain the woman they love.  Whether that's selfishness or not - well neither film is exactly a lesson in Ayn Rand Objectivisim.   Then again, the lesson of Metropolis isn't exactly "Comrades Unite!" either, though the juxtaposition of the workers and aristocrats isn't far from the Soviet revolution silents of that same period.  Instead the message is "The mediator between the head and the hands must be the heart," a somewhat muddled and sentimental cry toward empathy all around.  Not so for District 9.  While our "good guy" situation may be murky, there are certainly bad guys and they must be defeated, through destruction if necessary.  In Metropolis the only villain set for destruction is the evil scientist Rotwang.  Even Frederson gets inexplicably redeemed.  In the time between the two films, one-dimensional heroes have made way for one-dimensional villains.  This makes it easier when the good guys win, if they win.  Unfortunately in that same amount of time, that conclusion has gotten much less inevitable.


Hope/Uncertainty

Metropolis ends on a pretty high note.  Foes are vanquished.  Love is founds.  Mutual respects are earned.  Societal breakdown is avoided.  At the end of District 9, what we're left with is hope.  We're presented with the possibility of an eventual happy ending.  When you think of the characters of District 9 in five or ten years, do you see a happy ending?  Chances are you haven't filled one in yet, and are hesitant to doing so.  This is because the filmmakers have us exactly where they want us.  For a movie influenced so strongly and apparently by the recent history of Apartheid in South Africa, it could never in good conscience end by the hands and the head meeting with the heart.  All is well.  Intolerance is defeated.  It has to present the struggle for equality as one with no end, just ongoing hope.  Curiously in this particularly pessimistic fable, the only real solution is the permanent separation of the human and alien class.  Metropolis certainly wasn't errant to suggest peaceful protest, but nearly a century later after war, corruption, holocaust and unending civil rights struggle, the idea may not play as well at the multiplex.  Even Fritz Lang eventually said "You cannot make a social-conscious picture in which you say that the intermediary between the hand and the brain is the heart. I mean, that's a fairy tale."

Metropolis is indeed a fairy tale.  That's one of the major differences between the two films and indicative of how the science fiction genre has evolved.  Metropolis is a big intentionally artificial stylized production with expressionist sets, wild dream sequences and eventually the Whore of Babylon running about.  It's not set in our reality but is a parable. District 9 is presented in a semi-documentary style, heavy on realism, going to lengths to redefine our history in a way we'll accept.  It thrives on its believability. It's worth noting that the high-concept of District 9 propelled it to surprise independent film success, although the backing Peter Jackson didn't hurt, nor did the action movie finale (which is why one must wonder if the film promotes just revolution as a social philosophy or a reason to get some explosions into the picture).  Metropolis's high concept on the other hand lead to political and critical controversy (enjoy this take down by dissenter H.G. Welles), highly edited, nearly incoherent versions.  Therein perhaps lies the main lesson in the comparison of these two films.  Anyone looking to stir up controversy today should tackle a subject other than the eternal, unresolvable struggle between the haves and have-nots.  Which may not necessarily be such a good sign of progress.  Because while we almost all now agree with the triumphantness of the statement, we've also accepted the inevitability of the premise.

Anticipation... The Year in Film Promotion

Year in Review

NATHANIEL: Hey kids. So some time ago I was introduced to Mark Blankenship who writes The Critical Condition. I've been reading that blog ever since. Mark writes about everything pop culture -- I love his music posts especially -- and he's now officially a "talking head" having done a couple of Joy Behar Show gigs. We decided to have a little year in review convo. Part one is here at The Film Experience and tomorrow Critical Condition will run Part two. Got it?

MARK: Hi Nathaniel!

NATHANIEL: Hey you.

MARK: With Hurricane Award Season upon us and year-end lists popping up everywhere, I thought it would be fun to look back at the year in movie promotion. In 2010, which trailers, posters, and campaigns were the best? Which ones were the worst?

In the category of Worst Promotion of a Good Movie, I'll nominate Despicable Me. I mean... seriously. I've seen a billion previews for that film, and I still don't know what it's about. Yellow tic-tacs in overalls? Steve Carell learning a life lesson from the Orphaned Triplets of Belleville? Who can say? Apparently, though, Despicable Me is really good. It certainly connected with ticket buyers, and New York's David Edelstein put it in his year-end top ten. Yet because of my weeks-long irritation with the previews, I'm still dubious.

On the other hand, the promotion for Sofia Coppola's Somewhere gets my vote for Worst Promotion of a Good Movie. Because, really... Somewhere is a dense, rewarding experience that's being marketed as a pretentious suck-a-thon about a rich dude's problems. Coppola's previous film, Marie Antoinette, was so boring it actually made me angry, yet it got a sexy, energetic campaign. Why couldn't someone do the same for a movie that actually has some sexiness and energy?

Alright... that's my opening salvo. Which campaigns are you thinking about?

Minions! (a.k.a. "Millions" ...in merchandising)

NATHANIEL: How can I even get to the campaigns that I might be thinking about when you have already given me so much to lob back at you?

I can one up you on Despicable Me; I've SEEN the movie and I still couldn't tell you what it was about. It's fun to watch and it's funny but it evaporates in your head within a week's time. The only thing I do remember now is the ad campaign. I think we have to consider this a strange case where a bewildering ad campaign actually does truth tell. As I recall, the movie is disjointed and slapsticky and it does feature plenty of scenes involving yellow tic-tacs. I suppose the main narrative thrust is Steve Carell learning life lessons. Which lessons those were I can't recall but I remember there was much cuteness. And not just by way of yellow breath fresheners.

As for the Coppola Now: Redux... I shall refrain from answering until you tell me what your position is on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 1. (speaking of suck-a-thons about rich dude's problems)

MARK: It's interesting you should ask about HP7: The Hallownator. I promised my family that I'd wait to see it until I went home for the holidays, so for the time being, my opinion is entirely based on the promotional campaign. And as someone who hasn't really liked any of these movies---I've found them all to be ploddingly literal adaptations of exquisitely imaginative books---I've found a couple of reasons to hope. For one, I was heartened by the story that the movie wouldn't be released in 3-D. To me, it suggested that quality was being chosen over extra revenue. Also, the trailer (and especially the music in the trailer) has a grandness that matches the weight of the story.

That said, the posters I've seen plastered all over New York are just... zzzz. The dimly list cast photos may tell me the movie is coming out, but they don't tell me anything about it. Really, though, I don't guess that matters, because it's not like this movie needs that much help to get butts in the seats.

NATHANIEL:  EVERYONE's opinion of Harry Potter is entirely based on the promotional campaign, not just yours! You've stated the truth of it. In fact, you have already seen the movie if you've read the books or seen the commercials or plan to see the final movie next year. Nothing happens. Or, rather, if something happens it's the same thing that's already happened. It used to be the same film every year with minor changes in window dressing. Now, they're not even bothering to make a film anymore. Warner Bros has made the world's first 145 minute bookmark/commercial and they're making hundreds of millions for their evil con job. They've robbed the public blind and the public loves it.

Marketing is the new Stockholm Syndrome.

I love Sofia Coppola's movies (even and especially Marie Antoinette -- so there!) but they're their own repetitive franchise. Sofia is a better wizard because mise en scene trumps CGI every time.

Sofia Coppola and the Virgin's Suicide
Sofia Coppola and the Suntory Times Adventure
Sofia Coppola and the Cake-Eating Queen
Sofia Coppola and the Deadly Chateau Doldrums Pt. 1

poor little world famous rich boys

Somewhere and Hallows Pt 1 are essentially the same story: Famous Mopey Rich Boy (wizard Harry Potter / movie star Stephen Dorff) has a big problem (Voldemort/Ennui). Watch him wander aimlessly through foreign places not knowing exactly what he's looking for (Godrick's Hollow /Italy) whenever he's not resting aimlessly in his comfortable quarters (Magic Tent / Celebrity Hotel) with his loved one (Hermione / Elle Fanning). All the while he's worrying about that overarching problem that he really doesn't know how to solve. In the end he sort of decides to move forward towards his goal. Maybe. It's vague.

My longwinded point -- I promise to be much briefer moving forward-- is that I'm going to mentally slap the next Harry Potter fan who calls any "arthouse" movie boring because "nothing happens."

MARK: I think you've cracked the Da Vinci Code with your Harry Potter/Somewhere comparison. Some addendums: Famous Mopey Rich Boy relies on souped-up transportation (Firebolt Broomstick/sports car) and has a dopey friend whose relationship with a young woman provides a convenient dramaturgical contrast to his relationship with her (Ron/Chris Pontius.) Also, a set of twins tries to amuse Rich Boy with tricks that only end up distracting him from his quest (those Weasley boys with the magic shop/those strippers with the portable pole.)

Strippers with port-a-poles. Best scene in Somewhere!

Meanwhile, I can tell you that I'm seethingly jealous about your recent interaction with Barbara Hershey. (But also happy for you!) What did you think about the lead up to Black Swan: Revenge of the Back Feather?

NATHANIEL: Ah, Black Swan. The topic of the month. This is a rare case where I'd believe that the marketing campaign was directed by the filmmaker (I'm sure it wasn't) because the commercials are of the same exact tenor of the product: outre, mysterious, sick, sexy, highbrow clothing but lowbrow soul (note how thrilled the trailer is by its big campy gotcha moment (that feather yanked from Natalie's back!). The commercials are so cinematic you can taste popcorn. In short: ticket sold!

Even the posters are using truth in advertising. The first one, with Natalie's Black Swan ballet makeup is full frontal confrontrational as introduction. That art deco/Erte-ish series that followed are true enough about the movie's love of artifice and theatrical design. The ugly one with Natalie's badly photoshopped red arm reveals real commercial instincts - it's not exactly a subtle movie. Finally, the latest one with Natalie's cracked face, is yet again underlining that this girl is beautiful but cracked.

...She bonkers!

Black Swan's Truth in Advertising.

Part 2 of this convo ~
Now Playing at The Critical Condition

...for more on favorite promotions and movie posters. Read it.

More Critics: Oklahoma, Austin, Women Film Critics...

If you'd like to discuss the latest round of critics awards, have at it.

Three more groups have announced and so the usual suspects play the game of musical chairs. The most interesting note right off the bat is that the Women Film Critics Circle have bestowed an award on Black Swan that isn't a flattering one. They've given it "Worst Female Images in a Movie".

I understand the impulse behind this sort of "tsk-tsk"ing  having been burned over the years with the often problematic depiction of gay characters but I think it's wrong-headed to a degree.




Black Swan is about a very specific drumtight world and a very specific tightly strung character completely encased in that world. In other words, this is not a portrait of Woman in the broader sense. What's more one can even argue that just about every person in the film is presented in an unreliable way, the whole picture being influenced by Nina's own psyche.  Furthermore, the film screws around with genres (horror and psychological thrillers) which could easily be undone by positive portrayals. Nina is no positive role model (for ballerinas, for artists, for bisexual or gay women, for anyone); she has a lot of issues. But this "award" seems to miss the point of what the movie is.

Identity politics isn't always the best way to judge art. I've made the same mistake myself but if you're too focused on it the dark side is that you're in danger of promoting vanilla-flavored art or pedantic work that's better suited to generic uplift or sermonizing than deeper artistic merit.  Even so I'm always interested in what they have to say and some different films get prizes here. Yes!

Mother Bening (and random Child)

Women Film Critics Circle
Best Movie About Women Mother & Child
Best Movie By A Woman Debra Granik's Winter's Bone
Best Woman Storyteller [Screenplay] Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right
Best Actor  Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Best Actress Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right
Best Young Actress Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone
Best Comedic Actress  Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right
Best Foreign Film by or About Women (tie) Mother (South Korea) and Women Without Men (Iran)
Best Female Images in a Movie  Conviction
Worst Female Images in a Movie Black Swan
Best Male Images in a Movie  (tie) Another Year and The King's Speech
Worst Male Images in a Movie Jackass 3D
Best Theatrically Undistributed Movie Temple Grandin
Best Equality of the Sexes  (tie) Another Year and Fair Game
Best Animated Females Despicable Me
Best Family Film Toy Story 3
Lifetime Achievement  Helen Mirren
Acting & Activism Award Lena Horne
Adrienne Shelley Award (Films Opposing Violence Against Women) Winter's Bone
Josephine Baker Award (Women of Color Experience Award) For Colored Girls
Karen Morley Award (Women's History) Fair Game
Courage in Acting  Helen Mirren in The Tempest
Invisible Woman Award (Ignored Performance) Q'Orianka Kilcher in The Princess Kaluhani
Best Documentary by a Woman A Film Unfinished
Best Ensemble Mother & Child
Best Screen Couple Tom & Gerri (Jim Broadbent & Ruth Sheen)

• It's nice to see Another Year (to which that does not apply) get some kudos... and though I have a couple of very minor concerns about the movie I do love the central portrait of Tom & Gerri quite a whole lot. They're a wonderful happily married screen couple and you sure don't see many portraits of that on screen.
• A lot of love for Winter's Bone here. It seems safe for a Best Picture nod given how well it's done in the precursors... but we've still got the problem of 11 or 12 films doing well and only 10 slots.
• Can someone explain to me how Helen Mirren is being courageous by starring in The Tempest? Is this because Julie Taymor is so dangerous to actors. (Sorry, couldn't help it.)

Oklahoma Film Critics
Best Picture The Social Network
Top Ten The Social Network, Inception, Black Swan, The Fighter, Winter's Bone, True Grit, The King's Speech, Toy Story 3, The Kids Are All Right and 127 Hours
Best Director David Fincher, The Social Network
First Feature Chris Morris, Four Lions
Obviously Worst Movie Sex & the City 2
Not-So-Obviously Worst Movie Alice in Wonderland
Best Actress Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Actor  Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Best Supporting Actress Mila Kunis, Black Swan
Best Supporting Actor Christian Bale, The Fighter
Best Adapted Screenplay Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Best Original Screenplay  Chris Nolan, Inception
Best Documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop
Best Animated Film Toy Story 3
Best Foreign Film A Prophet

• I have nothing to say.

Austin Film Critics Association
Best Picture Black Swan
Top Ten Black Swan, The Social Network, Inception, Toy Story 3, The King's Speech, True Grit, The Fighter, A Prophet, Winter's Bone and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Best Director Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
First Film Gareth Edwards, Monsters
Best Actress Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Actor  Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Best Supporting Actress Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Best Supporting Actor Christian Bale, The Fighter
Best Adapted Screenplay Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Best Original Screenplay  Black Swan
Best Original Score Daft Punk, Tron: Legacy
Best Cinematography Matthew Libatique, Black Swan
Breakthrough Chloe Moretz, Kick-Ass/Let Me In
Austin Film Award  Ben Steinbauer's Winnebago Man
Best Documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop
Best Animated Film Toy Story 3
Best Foreign Film A Prophet
Special Honorary Award Friday Night Lights (for producing excellent, locally made television and contributing to the film community in Austin for the past five years)

• You'd think Oklahoma and Austin were Twin Cities proximate given how closely their opinions align. In fact, looking over top ten lists from numerous critics groups and looking at pundit predictions for Oscar's Best Picture's it seems like we're heading for an exact consensus match (or close enough). It's like nobody loves anything other than about 12 movies. Either that or the decimation of critical jobs has resulted in critics organizations full of people who maybe don't have as diverse or adventurous of taste as they used to...? Or are critical taste shifting ever more toward Oscar's middlebrow tastes... Or are Oscar's middlebrow tastes shifting towards critical consensus? ...Or are both moving inexorably towards the center where we'll share one brain. I'm asking this in a silly way but it is a little disturbing. I guess this is why Armond White seems more famous than he used to be. Being a contrarian is no longer a common critical position ;)
• I can't resist pushing this button since we'd just had a theme week "Older Actresses get no respect" and I was called "Reverse Ageist". But Austin likes 'em even younger than Chicago. They've never awarded Best Actress to anyone over 29 in their entire existence. And this year's average age (3 girls awarded) is 18 years of age! Hee. Why do I like to push buttons? I do not know.
• Super happy to see Friday Night Lights honored. Aren't you?

My Spider Links Are Tingling

Playbill Julie Andrews and Dolly Parton are both getting special Grammys this year.
Pixar Blog another FYC ad for Toy Story 3 as Titanic. Hmmm. I gotta say, I am not sure about the taste level on this one. What'cha think?
BBC Anne Hathaway discusses that Judy Garland biopic. There's some hesistancy about the singing. Here's a clue. If you can sing as well as Anne Hathaway (very well) star in a musical, not a biopic with one of the most famous voices of all time that you won't be able to replicate. Argh.
Old Hollywood, my favorite tumblr, gives a rooftop view of the filming of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931).
IndieWire The Year of the Actress. 60 Women FYC.

Off Cinema
THR whoa. Broadway stars are on the attack after injuries on that Spider Man set. But wait there's more...
AV Club heated meetings and cancellations follow latest injury.
Wet Asphalt on "slipstream" and the continuum between genre fiction and mainstream fiction. I'm linking up to this because I read my first China Miéville novel earlier this year and am still... uncertain... about it.
Playbill HBO will film Pee-Wee Herman's current Broadway show for broadcast.
BlogStage actress audition alert: wanna be Kathleen Turner's understudy?

Merry Christmahanakwanzukkah. It's an Open Thread.

We've hit some roadblocks and posting may be light for the next few days. Or heavy. You never know. It's the holidays. So let this be an open thread. What's on your mind? To you readers who are starting your festive travels today, be safe. If any of you are offline this week have a great time.

thanks for visiting and making this place so festive in the comments, just like it's the holiday season every week of the year. xoxo.
.........-Nathaniel 

p.s. Check out these auteur-themed cards starring Martin Scorsese & Mike Leigh. So funny.

p.p.s. In case you didn't see it, AMPAS posted a reminder list of eligible films at their official site.
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Box Office Blather: Spectacles, Star Vehicles, Subtitles and Easy $

Year in Review Pt 1 of Many
It's time to wrap up 2010. You'll have to have patience since The Film Experience likes to do this piecemeal... and often! Let's do it every day at 10 AM or 10 PM or both when we magically have free time. How about that? We'll start with the US box office.

Box office hits get much coverage in the media so let's just dispense that basic "smash hit" list quick-like and move on to more interesting less covered seat-filler topics. All figures on all lists are up until the December 18th. And please go easy on any errors as I am unskilled at math is not my strong suit.



US Top Dozen

1. Toy Story 3 $415
2. Eyesore in Wonderland $334
3. Iron Man 2 $312
4. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse $300
5. Inception $292
6. The Commercial For Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2 $265
7. Despicable Me $250
8. Shrek Forever After $238
9. How to Train Your Dragon $217
10. The Karate Kid $176
11. Clash of the Titans $163
12. Grown-Ups $162

The list proves again - as in every year - that the American moviegoer has an extremely limited palette. There are only four types of films he/she will go to in droves: animated features, sequels/remakes (i.e. "franchises"), action/visual spectacles and broad comedies. It doesn't get more diverse until much further down the list. The only film in the year's top 25 that doesn't fit neatly into one of those four categories is Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island. So well done, Marty. That is a true accomplishment.

Subtitled Features
(I've included worldwide figures too for the sake of provenance)

1. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo [Sweden]  $10 (worldwide: $104)
2. The Girl Who Played With Fire [Sweden]  $7 (worldwide: $66)
3. The Secret in Their Eyes [Argentina]  $6 (worldwide: $33)
4. I Am Love [Italy] $5 (worldwide: $10)
5. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest [Sweden]  $4 (worldwide: $40)
6. My Name is Khan [India]  $4 (worldwide: $41)
7. A Prophet [France] $2 (worldwide: $17)
8. Dabangg [India] $2 (worldwide: $3)
9. Kites [Miscellania] $1.6 (worldwide: $3)
10. Raajneeti [India] $1.5 (worldwide: $12)
11. MicMacs [France] $1.2 (worldwide: $16)
12. Golmaal 3 [India] $1 (worldwide: $2)

Beyond interest in the Swedish "Millenium" trilogy -- which dropped steadily with each film here and elsewhere in equal percentages -- it was tough going for international fare yet again. It seems like a different world entirely than when we regularly had a couple of substantial breakout hits a year (as recently as the mid Aughts). The only steady market seems to be Bollywood features, which regularly gross about a million with barely any media coverage. Oscar nominees are a far less stable subcategory. Despite more media coverage their grosses tend to be all over the place, ranging anywhere from $10,000 (Peru's Milk of Sorrow) to just over half a million (Israel's Ajami) to the $2 million range (France's A Prophet and 2009 holdover Germany's White Ribbon) to $6 million (the winner, Argentina's The Secret in Their Eyes). In other words it's a bit hard to imagine that the Oscar nomination does all that much more for the films than they could have managed on their own... unless they win. It's tough to quantify so it's aggravating that the studios seem to think that the first quarter is the only time to release the high profile foreign contenders. (It's like how the English language Oscar contenders all have to compete with each other for the same limited seasonal dollars from November through February. It's so weird.)

Next...?
Well, I was going to do a list based purely on original material but the list was so depressing (it was basically original material that could easily be confused for a remake) that I screamed abort! abort! and changed course immediately. Let's try this. Which DRAMAS, i.e. the things audiences mostly only want to see on their TVs now, were hits with moviegoers?

Top 12 Dramas (reality based i.e. no supernatural, genre or primarily action-focused stuff)

1. Shutter Island  $128 [debatable classification - remove it if you will]
2. The Town $92 [an action movie in a sense but mostly a drama]
3. The Social Network $91
4. Eat Pray Love $80
5. Dear John $80
6. The Last Song $62
7. Why Did I Get Married, Too $60
8. Secretariat $58
9. Letters to Juliet $53
10. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps $52
11. For Colored Girls $37
12. The American $35

On this list we see that quality matters far less than having a star in your movie; just don't expect big returns on investment since big stars cost $10+ million. Also: Amanda Seyfried and Tyler Perry are good bets for non-gargantuan but sturdy profits. The Social Network, a film without any action sequence, gooey romance or crime-angle, is a true anomaly. It's only here because it's awesome and topical. But being awesome and topical will only get you to around $90-100. It's interesting that The Social Network's box office is so similar to Brokeback Mountain's, another anomaly that had quality as its chief selling point. (GASP. What a crazy thing to bank on!)

Best Return on Investment???
This list is haphazard / insufficient using only production budgets vs. US distribution returns from box office mojo. In other words it's not so accurate (merchandising, foreign markets, DVD sales and the potential windfall of sequels all contribute to insanely costly movies making a lot of money... eventually. While marketing costs subtract from that profit margin all the while.) But I think the following list is interesting as a very blurry snapshot as to what films are profitable even before you factor in these other things.

1. Paranormal Activity 2 $84 gross = 28 times its budget.
2. The Last Exorcism  $41 gross =22.7 times its budget.
3. Easy A $58 gross  =7.25 times its budget.
4. Jackass 3-D $116 gross = 5.8 times its budget.
5. The Kids Are All Right $20 gross = 5 times its budget.
6. Twilight Saga: Eclipse $300 gross = 4.4 times its budget.
7. The Karate Kid $176 gross = 4.4 times its budget.
8. Diary of a Wimpy Kid $64 gross  = 4.2 times its budget. 
9. Despicable Me $250 gross = 3.6 times its budget. 
10. Dear John $80 gross  = 3.2 times its budget.

Black Swan, budgeted at $13 million may well join this top ten since it's already earned $15 million and it's only just finished its first weekend of wide release and once it wears off its opening week energy, presumably it'll get that Oscar nominee boost to keep it going.

If you include worldwide revenues and franchise potential the numbers would change. How to Train Your Dragon, for example, which cost $165 million to make and grossed $217 million doesn't sound that profitable until you factor in the foreign gross (another $277 million) and the eventual sequels ordered up, which will come into the world market with the most cost efficent marketing tool possible: familiarity. And some movies are far more profitable overseas: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was budgeted at $13 million and has grossed $104 million worldwide, so only 10% of its gross is coming from America. But I was trying to make this as easy on myself as possible hence the US totals.

The year in box office. Crazy numbers. I'd be happy just making a really crappy "per screen average" figure this week. How 'bout you?

Finally..

It would... oh never mind. This post is long enough. What's the last movie you paid to see? Did you get your money's worth?