There must be great relief in the caverns of Disney, as Pearl's fortunes seem to be improving, and there's another review, this time a favorable one, in today's Wall St. Journal. The negative is reported to have cost about $140 million.Mention of "celluloid" will be observed here. Regardless of the precise technical nuances of what the term means, it seems to be glued into synonymity with "film" in the public mind, and this isn't going to change any time soon.
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Why ‘Pearl Harbor’ Won’t Bomb
Disney’s new war epic is one for the ages.
May 30, 2001 -- Opinion Journal
By SETH LIPSKY
The reader should be forewarned that my taste in movies has never run to the art films. My lifetime favorite is “Around the World in Eighty Days.” But after discounting for that fact, let me say that with respect to “Pearl Harbor,” I just don’t know what in Sam Hill the reviewers are talking about. I saw the Disney war epic over the weekend. It would be a disservice if I reported that the film is anything but fabulous--one of the best rainy day afternoons I can recall.
I should say at the start that I went with a party of six, including three boys between the ages of seven and 10. We went to the 5:45 p.m. showing at the Tri-Plex in Great Barrington, Mass. We had taken the precaution of purchasing tickets late in the morning, which turns out to have been a good idea, because by 5:30, when we got there, it was impossible to get near the ticket counter. The place was what could only be called mobbed.
That the crush to get in had been precipitated by one of the most uniformly negative batch of reviews since the invention of celluloid was not lost on those jostling to get in. “Pearl Harbor” was panned in the local paper, The Berkshire Eagle, as well as the Daily News, the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, which found the love triangle “ludicrous,” the dialog “leaden.” One Eric Harrison, writing in the Houston Chronicle, actually opened his review with a little disquisition marveling on Leni Riefenstahl and her mastery of cinema as a propaganda tool.
“It may be heretical to say so,” quoth the Chronicle, “but Michael Bay, the director of ‘Pearl Harbor’ and other equally bombastic and manipulative action movies, may be Riefenstahl’s equal in his ability to marshal resources for the advancement of unworthy causes.” Young Harrison goes on to concede that Mr. Bay isn’t selling anything as monstrous as Nazism. “But, appearances aside, he isn’t selling anything noble, either,” he writes, going on to assert that he is “pushing nothing more or less than a vision of America comprising equal parts of Norman Rockwell, romance novels, patriotic old war movies and MTV.”
It seems to me that when a movie reviewer writes about a movie “appearances aside,” it’s a little bit like Mark Twain’s famous remark about how Wagner’s music isn’t as bad as it sounds. But I digress. When someone in the packed theater lobby remarked on the contrast between the reviews and the crowd, a lady a few feet away called out, “I was just thinking the same thing.” And someone else muttered that he’d like to see what would have happened had the reviewers praised the film.
Anyhow, if it turns out that there was a sudden run-up in the world price of raw sugar over the weekend, it may be because my gang hit the counter where the Tri-Plex sells candy by the pound. We managed to get it and the popcorn and drinks to our fifth row seats by hauling it in with a makeshift sledge. I just mention that because a surprising thing happened during the movie, which is that the popcorn went unfinished and the candy was abandoned.
The munching stopped almost the moment the movie began, meaning about the time young Rafe and Danny accidentally started up that old crop-duster and found themselves bouncing down the runway. The scene in which Rafe meets his girl while dropping his drawers for an inoculation in the rear end was met with great hilarity. There were also a few questions about whether that was really what it was like when one got inducted into the army. I had to explain that I got inoculated by a gun-like contraption wielded by the medical equivalent of Rosie the Riveter. But if this lack of verisimilitude bothered anyone, it wasn’t me.
Nor was there a single complaint during the development of the love triangle all the reviewers have been complaining about. I don’t know what it is about the concept of a love triangle that has upset the reviewers. Maybe they reckon the device was ruined by Shakespeare. Or the makers of Casablanca. But I looked down the row and every single kid--not to mention the neighboring adults--was leaning forward in his chair or looking otherwise absorbed in the big screen. What better way, it seems to me, than one of those confounded love triangles to illuminate the undeniable fact that war is bigger than any of us.
The battle footage was stunning. Even the reviewers are conceding that point. I was a bit concerned that the seven-year-old would get a bit nervous, so I kept leaning over and saying, “Watch for the cook, watch for the cook.” This was a reference to Cuba Gooding Jr.’s portrayal of the hero Dorie Miller, who, in the most desperate moments of the attack, emerged from the galley to take over an anti-aircraft gun and bring down one of the Japanese planes. The reviewers are of the opinion that the inclusion of this African-American holder of the Navy Cross was a cynical bow to political correctness, but it’s hard to imagine a telling of the Pearl Harbor story without this hero.
Or, for that matter, FDR. The reviewers are also upset at Jon Voight’s portrayal of the 32nd president, particularly the scene in which Roosevelt has gathered his aides to plot a counter-attack on Tokyo. When he is told that it can’t be done, he reaches under the table and moves his legs to the floor from the wheel chair and then, brushing his valet aside, pulls himself to a standing positions and tells his staff never to tell him that something can’t be done. I’d go a second time for that scene alone.
As for James Doolittle, I thought it was the movie’s best touch. It moved the whole thing beyond the American defeat, and it did so in a way that gripped the lads I was with, right down to their socks. Afterward, at the ice cream parlor, they started asking questions about the history of World War II. This carried on much of the weekend. Their mothers are likely to be shopping for books on the topic. As we headed back to the car, my brother leaned over and asked me if I remembered our father’s friend Howard Corbin taking us to see Audie Murphy playing himself in “To Hell and Back.” The fact is I could remember almost every detail, even to the point of us getting Howard to haul out the medals he himself had won in the war. If “Pearl Harbor” proves to be half as memorable for our boys as that long ago trip to the cinema was for us, well, let’s just say it would be hard to place a value on the price of admission.
Mr. Lipsky is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Wednesdays.
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‘Pearl Harbor’ Performs Very Well, But Doesn’t Set Box-Office Records
May 29, 2001 -- Media & Marketing
By JOHN LIPPMAN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
LOS ANGELES -- Walt Disney Co.’s much-hyped “Pearl Harbor” performed extraordinarily well during its first weekend in movie theaters, but fell short of a widely predicted shattering of box-office records.
The big-budget holiday movie sold an estimated $75.1 million in tickets over the four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend. That’s about 6% higher than “Mission: Impossible 2” did over the same period last year, but much less than the $90.2 million record set by “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” in 1997. After taking into account inflation of ticket prices, “Pearl Harbor” appears to have drawn only incrementally higher audiences into theaters -- if that -- than “Mission: Impossible 2” did last year.
Nonetheless, Disney executives pronounced the $140 million budget “Pearl Harbor” a success, saying the movie’s box-office performance met expectations and is on track eventually to make a profit. “It did every bit as good as we thought it would, perhaps a shade more than we thought possible” because of its length, said Chuck Viane, president of Disney’s distribution arm. “Pearl Harbor” is nearly three hours long, and most theaters can schedule it only three times a day, compared with four to five times a day for most other movies.
But perhaps the more interesting development over the long holiday weekend was the continued strong performance of the children’s computer-animated movie “Shrek,” produced by DreamWorks SKG. The box office for “Shrek” actually rose for the Friday-through-Sunday period, pulling in a total of $42.5 million, compared with $42.3 million over the previous weekend. Ticket sales usually decline for movies on their second weekend. “It’s incredible,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. “That’s a film that could surpass the $200 million mark.” When a movie performs better on the second weekend, that usually means it benefits from good “word of mouth,” and suggests a broader and repeat audience.
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Box-Office Blowouts
Top five films opening over Memorial Day weekends.
MOVIE YEAR WEEKEND TOTAL (millions) The Lost World: Jurassic Park 1997 $90.2 Pearl Harbor 2001 75.1* Mission: Impossible 2 2000 70.8 Mission: Impossible 1996 56.8 Godzilla 1998 55.7
Note: Some films opened Wednesday before the Memorial Day weekend, but figures include only Friday to Monday grosses.
Overall, the top 12 movies over the four-day weekend generated an estimated $176.5 million at the box office, compared with $171.2 million last year. Last year’s final tally of $183.6 million includes the box office for all movies in release, which won’t be known for a couple more days. Other top-performing movies over the long weekend included Vivendi Universal SA unit Universal Studios’ “The Mummy Returns,” which generated an estimated $19.1 million for a total to date of $170.7 million, and Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures’ “A Knight’s Tale,” which pulled in an estimated $9.3 million for a total so far of $44.5 million.
Theater operators appeared satisfied with “Pearl Harbor’s” performance, but also marveled at the holdover strength of “Shrek.” Bruce Olson, president of Marcus Theaters, based in Milwaukee, said that “business-wise, [“Pearl Harbor”] did about as expected.” He is projecting box-office ticket sales to total about $1 million over the four days on the 70 screens of his company in the Midwest where the movie is playing. But Mr. Olson added the “big surprise” was “Shrek,” which pulled in box-office ticket sales 29% higher than its first weekend at his theaters. “That’s extremely rare,” he said.
Disney executives noted that 85% of the theaters showing “Pearl Harbor” had sold out, indicating strong interest among the first wave of moviegoers. Richard Cook, chairman of Disney’s Motion Pictures Group, said that most theaters had “pretty much maxed out” and that some were showing the movie on two screens simultaneously in a practice known as “interlocking.” “There wasn’t anymore we could have done, maybe 5% one way or the other,” he said.
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posted 05-27-2001 12:52 AM
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