Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Set the TiVo!

Commencing April 1, Turner Classic Movies is offering a month of terrific comedy classics, many of them rarely seen. Here's the entire schedule and as you can see, Friday is Laurel and Hardy Day and next Monday belongs to Charley Chase and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. That's just for starters. It's really an outstanding month for movies on TCM.

• Posted at 9:59 PM · LINK

Coming Soon to DVD: Everything!

Ever since I posted about the upcoming DVD releases of The Yogi Bear Show and The Huckleberry Hound Show, I've received a slew of e-mails from folks asking me if this or that classic series will be coming out on DVD. The answer to that question is that darn near everything will be coming out on DVD until such time as it starts to look unprofitable.

At most companies, there is a "wishful thinking" kind of master plan to keep putting stuff out until the vaults are empty. I've seen some pretty long lists of planned releases...but it would be wrong to say that any particular show or film is definitely coming out on DVD in the near future until it's formally announced. Up to that point, and occasionally even after, it's always subject to changes and postponements, usually based on the way the market seems to be skewing at any given moment. The sales on the Huck and Yogi DVD sets will in some way determine how swiftly we see the rest of the other early Hanna-Barbera shows released...but we will probably see them. In most cases, these decisions are not a matter of "if" but "when." And of course, two other questions are what kind of special features will be included and what source materials can be located and used.

Lately, I've found myself talking with various folks about how some DVDs are full of extras and deleted scenes and wonderful commentary tracks and "making of" documentaries, whereas on others, you just get a trailer or two...if you're lucky. The forthcoming DVD of the 1959 Li'l Abner movie has, like most Paramount Home Video releases, almost nada in the way of bonus material. This may be laziness but it's more likely a matter of "price-point" strategy. By not investing in adding material to the DVD, the Paramount folks are able to price it very cheap. The Abner DVD is ten and half bucks at Amazon, and I'm guessing someone figured that would be more profitable than adding features and having to sell the item for a few dollars more.

But there may also be another strategy involved, which is the notion of getting us all to buy the same movies again. As anyone who has collected comic books in the last few decades knows, companies spend a lot of time trying to figure how to get us to buy variant and upgraded editions. First, they put it out on cheap paper and we buy it...and maybe they also put out an edition with an alternate cover — and we buy that, too. Then they collect a bunch of issues into a deluxe paperback and we buy that. Then they reissue the same stuff that was in the paperback, only in hardcover and we buy that and...well, you see how this goes. I must have twenty publications in my collection that reprint the first Green Lantern-Green Arrow story by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams, ranging from the first (which cost 15 cents, I think) to the fancy deluxe hardcover for seventy-five smackers. DVD companies are already starting to employ the same tactics.

I've ordered the Li'l Abner DVD. And a couple years from now, when they put out a Silver Medal Edition or a Collectors' Series or whatever they'll call it with interviews and extra footage, I'll buy it again and so will a lot of you. Don't think we won't. That's above and beyond the fact that we may have to buy it again when the DVD format becomes outmoded and we all have something better in our video rooms. As I explained here, I think the entire science of improving home equipment is just a sneaky plan to see how many times they can get me to buy Goldfinger. (Which reminds me: There hasn't been a new, upgraded release of that in over a month. What the hell is wrong with these people?)

If this is anyone's conscious plan — and I know it is in some cases — they're being both farsighted and nearsighted at the same time. It's shrewd to figure on doing these extras and special features a few years from now...but they're forgetting that potential interviewees get older and die. The folks putting together a lot of the material for animation DVDs lately have had to cope with the fact that in some cases, everyone who worked on the original cartoons is deceased or too ill. There's also the unpleasant realities that a lot of material that one might like to put on a DVD was thrown away or allowed to rot because someone, years ago, did not see an immediately financial benefit to its preservation. In some cases, a release date is selected and then the hunt for negatives and prints commences, often with insufficient time or funding. With the general exception of Disney, most studios have not been good about spending money to preserve and catalogue their library unless there was a specific and immediate market for the material.

The home video revolution has taught us that just about every movie or TV show ever made has some value. If it doesn't now, wait a year or three. In 1985 when the Writers Guild went on strike over revenues from videocassettes, several industry figures loudly predicted that there would never be a market for old episodes of shows like M*A*S*H and I Love Lucy because anyone who wanted them would just tape them off the air. That has not proven true. In fact, I've heard very few predictions that included the phrase, "no one will ever pay good money for that" which haven't been disproven, insofar as home video is concerned. You'd think companies would spend more money to preserve their old TV shows and films, and to prepare commentary tracks and interviews with the performers and creative personnel who are still available to be interviewed. Yeah, you'd really think that.

• Posted at 2:29 PM · LINK

Animated Discussion

Over at the fine Cartoon Brew site, Amid Amidi has put up what he calls his monthly "things-could-be-so-much-better" post. This one waxes longingly for the days when Leon Schlesinger ran the Warner Brothers cartoon operation. Here's an excerpt...

Schlesinger recognized talent. He had the good sense of hiring Avery away from Walter Lantz. And then he built a team, partnering Avery with like-minded individuals such as Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett. But then he did one more thing that today's execs don't — he trusted his talent. He created the environment in which his talent could flourish; Avery, Clampett and Jones were willing to work all night because they knew their work wouldn't be trashed the following morning by Schlesinger. Sure, Leon may have spent his weekday afternoons playing eighteen holes or chasing the pretty secretaries around his yacht, but he'd already laid the foundation for the creation of great animated entertainment. The results of Schlesinger's business acumen? Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and some of the finest cartoons ever made.

I agree, natch, with the concept that good creative talents should be left alone to create. No argument there. But Amid has left out one other thing Schlesinger did. He allowed Jones and Clampett and Avery to make cartoons their way but he also paid them rotten money. And not only were the directors poorly compensated...so were the animators and inkers and background painters and storymen and everyone. Like many people who joined the work force during or around the Great Depression, they were all willing to work long hours for lousy pay and to not demand a piece of their creations, just to have any kind of job. They even, for a time, went along with the fiction that Leon Schlesinger — who couldn't draw or animate or write gags — was the head cartoonist there. Someone had to sign his name, a la Walt Disney, on the covers of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies comic books.

So I'm not sure I'd salute Mr. Schlesinger under a heading of "Animation's Greatest Executives." The freedom he afforded his people was great...but couple it with the niggardly compensation, and you couldn't get anyone good to work for you for very long today. (And even back then, Schlesinger lost two of the three directors Amidi mentions. Avery left for MGM and slightly better pay before he did his best work. Clampett left at or around his creative peak and pretty much stopped making cartoons altogether. He instead went looking for a similar work situation, except with himself in the Schlesinger role.)

Ol' Leon enjoyed a position not available to most (any?) Animation Executives today: He owned his studio and had a sweetheart deal with his distributor so he couldn't be fired. As long as he kept his costs down (i.e., paid his people poorly enough), he couldn't not make a ton of money every month. Give any "boss" those terms today and, sure, he'd let the directors have all the freedom in the world, especially if they were handing him billion-dollar properties in exchange for minimal pay. Unfortunately, these days, creative types usually wind up working not for one Animation Exec but for many layers of them, all piled one atop the other in corporate America, all looking to climb over one another's body to higher positions. I concur that they micro-manage to an unhealthy degree but perhaps that's in large part because they get micro-managed...and tossed out if they don't get quick results.

This is not so much a disagreement with Amid as an add-on. Yeah, Schlesinger got wonderful results from his management style but I'm a little leery of holding him up as a great role model for today. For one thing, I'm afraid the people who now run the animation companies would learn the wrong thing from his example: Just the part about paying your staff poorly.

• Posted at 8:20 AM · LINK

Perfectly Frank

I almost didn't attend the premiere last night of Frank Miller's Sin City, the new movie based on the graphic novel of the same name by the same guy. I like Frank and I like his comic book. What I don't like is violence and bloodshed in my movies, and a faithful adaptation promised to have oodles of shootings, busted limbs and even decapitations. I'm also leery when someone says, as they did of this one, "We're going to put a comic book on the screen."

Never seems worth the effort to me, and usually results in a lot of bad acting and phony special effects. But Sergio and I went to the premiere, which meant standing in endless lines, fighting our way through crowds of photographers and autograph seekers, and eating popcorn that seemed to have been popped back when Frank was just starting on Daredevil. And despite all that, it was worth it. I enjoyed the film for any number of reasons, not the least of which was the uncanny cinematography and the perfect transfer of Miller artwork to the screen. It really is the comic brought to life...and done so convincingly that about five minutes in, you forget how much of it is CGI and matte paintings, and just accept that it's all happening for real before your eyes. The violence is a bit numbing in places, but most of it's done with style and even, in some cases, extraordinary humor. When you live in Sin City, you can get shot fifty times, stabbed through the thorax and have a few body parts chopped off. And then, if you're not careful, someone might try to kill you.

I won't go into the plot. If you've read the graphic novel, you know it. If you haven't, so much the better because the surprises are the best part. Besides, I'm sick of reviewers who tell you the storyline instead of letting you discover it for yourself. One of the reasons I had a good time was that I haven't read reviews, seen clips, heard the actors discuss their roles on talk shows, etc. It's film noir to the nth degree, it's an anthology, and the blood and testosterone flow freely. That's all you need to know.

So was there anything I disliked? Yeah, and it probably bothered me more than it should have. The second the end credits started, everyone was applauding and about 90% of the audience was in the aisles, heading off for the post-screening party. They were not watching those credits and they made it impossible for those of us who did to sit and watch them.

Now, I'll agree that in this era when the assistant secretary to the insurance underwriter gets her name up there, end credits in movies can be hard to sit through...but this audience didn't even linger through the actors' names. And besides, this was the premiere. Some of the credits they walked out on were for people who were in the room. That's doubly rude. I wanted to yell at all the people streaming into the lobby, "Hey! You got in free! You got free Sierra Mist and free antique popcorn, and most of us are invited to a party after. The least you can do is to watch all of the movie and show respect for the folks who made it!"

Since they left, most of them missed one nice touch. At the end, Frank acknowledged the contribution of many comic creators whose work inspired him — Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Frank Robbins, Wally Wood and several others. In fact, Jack got a better credit on Sin City than he did on the first X-Men movie. I suspect he would have been prouder of the former, as well.

• Posted at 1:02 AM · LINK