DVD revenue in the U.S. was off 8% in 2008, but a new research report projects it’s only a matter of time before Blu-ray begins to compensate for declining returns from traditional discs.

For now, the picture is a bit dimmer. Even accounting for the sales of the fledgling high-def format, the home entertainment industry absorbed a 6% decline last year. 

The industry trade organization Digital Entertainment Group circulated year-end data for the segment on Wednesday, even as researcher SNL Kagan released a report projecting an incremental strengthening of home entertainment revenue over the next several years. 

Kagan said growth in the installed base on Blu-ray players eventually will help compensate more meaningfully for DVD declines

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

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From IW: I'll also keep my mouth shut (for once) about Angela Bassett, 'cause I don't want the chix from "Angie B. News" bringing down their special reign of Bassett terror on me. But I will say that I am not checking for this movie--but I said the same thing about Cadillac Records at one time, so we'll see.

Here is the trailer, tho I'm sure most of you have seen it:



And finally, for all you strong. Black, female screenwriters and filmmakers:

"The International Black Women’s Film Festival was established in 2002 by Adrienne Anderson, a San Francisco Bay Area-resident and San Francisco-native. Though an academic and collaborative technology trainer by profession, Ms. Anderson is also a journalist, writer and cultural activist. It was through her contact with music artists and filmmakers that she found that many films being presented had little, if any, fair representation of the complexity and human emotions of Black, female characters. Surprisingly, she found this consistency among films from other countries as well.

She decided to create a festival where the accomplishments, talents, creativity and filmmaking skills of Black women could be celebrated, featured and fairly represented. Looking beyond the usual Hollywood-style stereotypes of Black women, she introduced new and innovate cinema, primarily directed by Black women, and/or featuring Black women in non-stereotypical roles.

To date, the festival has received over 400 entries and has garnered international attention around the world from the Netherlands, Germany, Paris, Ghana, Canada and Australia! The festival has also received personal support and sponsorship from STAR WARS director and creator George Lucas and his media company LucasFilms, Ltd "


From IW: There is a call for entries going on right now. To find out more, click HERE.

Synopsis
Upon completion of a ten year prison sentence, the “world’s greatest cat burglar” Eddie “Hudson Hawk” Hawkins (Bruce Willis) emerges from Sing Sing to reunite with his buddy Tommy Five-Tone (Danny Aiello). Hanging out at their old neighborhood bar – which has been turned into an upscale Yuppie dive – Eddie is coerced by two-bit mafia hoods the Mario Brothers (Frank Stallone, Carmine Zozzora) to break into an auction house and steal an antique horse. Easily completing the score with Tommy’s help, the Leonardo Da Vinci sculpture Eddie steals becomes property of a sinister English butler with sword blades up his sleeves. Snooping out the auction house, Eddie meets a mysterious Vatican art expert (Andie MacDowell) and narrowly escapes death from a bomb left by the Mario Brothers.

The next assortment of colorful characters to intercept Eddie are a fiendish CIA goon squad with candy bar code names - Snickers (Don Harvey), Kit Kat (David Caruso), Almond Joy (Lorraine Toussaint) and Butterfinger (Andrew Bryniarski) – led by old school spy George Kaplan (James Coburn). Abducted and taken to Rome, Eddie next meets the Mayflowers (Richard E. Grant, Sandra Bernhard), obnoxious billionaires hoping to obtain pieces of a mechanism Leonardo Da Vinci built 500 years ago with the power to turn lead into gold. The Mayflowers coerce Eddie into stealing the final piece from the Vatican. Double crosses, a crotch sniffing mutt, curare darts, a Da Vinci glider and many explosions ensue.

Production history
Hudson Hawk originated with Robert Kraft, a Harvard grad who in 1979 was knocking around Manhattan as a piano man. Kraft befriended a bartender named Bruce Willis when he heard the 23-year-old blowing a harmonica at one of his gigs and invited him onstage. Kraft was reading about jazz great Coleman Hawkins – The Hawk – as well as Chicago, whose lakeshore winds were sometimes referred to as “the hawk.” After encountering a similar gust while walking west on 86th Street from Central Park, Kraft came up with a tune. “I didn’t know if it was going to be a song or a bassline. Whatever. But somewhere in that period, Bruce had the idea that there was a character, there was maybe a story. And he said at one point – either that afternoon or many weeks later or something – ‘Someday I’m gonna make a movie called The Hudson Hawk.’ And I thought, ‘Yeah, sure. I mean, you’re working in a bar, I’m trying to get a record deal, and you’re already making this movie.’”

Circumstances changed six years later when Willis went from obscurity to celebrity starring in the screwball detective series Moonlighting. When he wasn’t selling wine coolers for Seagram’s, Willis still had Hudson Hawk on the brain. “It kind of started out as a more of a serious action movie. One of the first things we said was that it was like James Bond before he became James Bond. What was James Bond like when he was 20 years old? Sean Connery, like, what was that guy doing? Like if he was stealing, he was a good thief. We got about that far.” Willis approached Moonlighting writer-producers Ron Osborn & Jeff Reno to pen a script. Reno recalls, “He had a character in mind that he wanted to do, this ex-con who had just gotten out of jail and got caught up in some kind of international situation. Ron and I came up with an idea, ran it by him, and he loved it, and everything was good, so we spent a lot of time then with him just kind of developing this.”

With a first look deal at TriStar Pictures, Willis also took his pet project to Joel Silver, who ultimately brokered a commitment from the star to do Die Hard 2 first in exchange for Silver producing Hudson Hawk. Steven E. de Souza had written the latest draft of the script and to direct, Silver brought in Michael Lehmann, director of two dark cult comedies, Heathers and Meet the Applegates. Lehmann recalled, “Steve de Souza wrote a draft that was very funny, very lively and very much a kind of fun action-adventure comedy. But I felt it was a little too close to home and that it was a little too much like other movies, and people had seen enough of this stuff without being reflective on it, and it would be fun to take the genre and turn it on its head.” Daniel Waters – author of Heathers - was hired to rewrite the script. Among his many contributions was the movie’s best idea: Willis and Danny Aiello belting out tunes in an effort to subvert burglar alarms.

Hudson Hawk commenced shooting July 1990 in New York on a budget of $42 million. As production moved to Italy, then Hungary, then England, that amount climbed. Interviewed by the New York Times in May 1991, co-producer Michael Dryhurst explained, “Hudson Hawk was conceived on a very broad canvas. The moment you put people into airplanes and hotel rooms, you’re into money. We were supporting a cast and crew of 100 people in Italy for 12 weeks and Budapest for 4 weeks. You’re paying for hotel rooms, location, food and per diems. And support costs in Europe are much higher.” Daniel Waters bluntly assessed some of the overruns: “The Italians were great people, but everybody has wine at lunch, and lunch never seems to end. American crews will work 48 hours straight if you pay ‘em enough. You can pay an Italian crew all the lire in the world and they won’t work past 10. Their lives are too important. We’d be saying, ‘Wait a minute, where are you going?’”

In his memoir You’re Only As Good As Your Next One, TriStar chairman Mike Medavoy diagnosed the real problems with Hudson Hawk: “(1) the star is the co-writer, (2) the producer is more powerful than the director, and (3) the director had never done a big film. Within the first three weeks of shooting, the film was over budget, so I flew to Rome to see what could be done. As soon as I saw the first dailies, I was certain Hudson Hawk would be, to use the popular Hollywood euphemism, ‘a total fucking disaster.’ While there was no way to stop the train wreck, I was hoping there was a way to minimize the damage. The performances were uneven. While it is admittedly hard to tell in dailies what is funny and what isn’t, everyone in the film seemed to be ‘acting funny’ but no one was funny.”

In a bid to speed up filming after six weeks, Silver replaced Dutch director of photography Jost Vacano with Dante Spinotti, an Italian. Maruschka Detmers – who had been cast as the female lead – was also let go after back pain prohibited her availability; Andie MacDowell was flown to Rome to take her place. Due to a schedule that was constantly shifting, MacDowell waited three weeks to get in front of a camera. Dryhurst rationalized the impending wreck to the New York Times: “One of the problems we had was the script, which had a number of changes as we went along. That’s always a recipe for difficulty, because you can’t plan. The script was being adjusted right up until the middle of November, when we were within three weeks of completion. It’s basically extra cost, because the script wasn’t locked in.”

While Joel Silver attempted damage control by claiming that Hudson Hawk barely exceeded its scheduled 81-day shoot, the New York Times reported that the show went on for 106 days. Daniel Waters described watching dailies with Silver and hearing the larger than life producer change his assessment of what they had on a day-to-day basis: “It’s like a Hope-Crosby picture,” “It’s like The Pink Panther,” “It’s a 90’s James Bond movie.” Pitching the movie to the readers of Entertainment Weekly on the cusp of its release in May 1991, Bruce Willis crowed, “This film is anything goes, in the classic comedy vein of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. It’s Cary Grant meets James Bond meets Our Man Flint meets The Flintstones meets Dorothy Lamour meets Miles Davis. Did we leave anything out? The film also has a jazzy cool feel to it, as opposed to rock & roll or country & western or polka.”

Whatever the hell the end product was, critics drop kicked it out of the park. Daily Variety: “Ever wondered what a Three Stooges short would look like with a $40 million budget? Then meet Hudson Hawk, a relentlessly annoying clay duck that crash-lands in a sea of wretched excess and silliness. Those willing to check their brains at the door may find sparse amusement in pic’s frenzied pace.” Julie Salamon, the Wall Street Journal: “Despite all of its failures of wit, sense, and pace, the film does most effectively flaunt the millions spent on it. The inane action takes place in splendiferous settings.” Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: “This may be the only would-be blockbuster that’s a sprawling, dissociated mess on purpose. It’s a perverse landmark: the first postmodern Hollywood disaster.”

While some in the film industry conjectured that Hudson Hawk cost as much as $70 million, sources close to the production told the New York Times that the bill was closer to $51 million. At any rate, the movie did a spectacular belly flop at the box office, grossing only $17.2 million in the U.S. Hudson Hawk seemed to play better on the small screen; when released on VHS, it even developed somewhat of a cult following. Recording a commentary track for the 1999 DVD release, Michael Lehmann stated, “Now the thing is, when this movie came out, a lot of people I think were expecting a solid, hard action movie along the lines of Die Hard or Die Hard 2. And we were attempting to provide a little bit of action and a lot of the kind of pyrotechnics you see in those movies, but this is, was and is meant to be a comedy.”

Talking Hudson Hawk with Robert Kraft in November 2005, Willis mused, “The thing that I think should be said about the film is that it was special to us for a lot of different reasons, but it was vilified I think more than any film of its time, of its decade. They had been trying to tear down, you know, come after me I guess since the first Die Hard. And, you know, the films were successful anyway, but they had started to review this film long before anybody saw any of it. So it was just my time to catch a beatin’ in the press. But the film is in profit now and it’s, you know, paid for itself and it’s makin’ money … I still laugh at it, I think it’s funny. There’s stuff in the movie that makes me laugh. I mean, it’s just so silly. And that was the whole point. We were just trying to make people laugh. It might have been a little too hip for the room at the time.”

Opinion
With so much going so wrong in so many departments – the story is MIA, staging clunky and visual palette downright shitty – finding amusement in Hudson Hawk comes down to how you feel about the jokes and about Bruce Willis. While the irreverence of Daniel Waters is reduced to a trickle in the big action flicks he normally rewrites (The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Batman Returns, Demolition Man), in Hudson Hawk, Waters’ acidic pop culture wit gets sprayed around with a high-pressure hose. Some of it is quite special: a CIA master of disguise and mime whose sentiments magically appear on cards he hands out probably takes the cake. The banter and movie references fly back and forth at the speed only a video store clerk can process and demands the movie be seen two or three times to absorb it all.

Hudson Hawk becomes too painful to endure more than once in a lifetime due to its star, who struts his way through empty scenes so assured of his own cuteness that instead of enjoying the movie, you want to take it out back and smack the grin off its face. Hudson Hawk isn’t a character, he’s Bruce Willis celebrating Bruce Willis, and that cocktail plows the movie head on into Stoker Ace and Rhinestone. Willis at least appears comfortable letting better actors try to help him. Andie MacDowell is in on the joke and turns in a funny performance, while James Coburn is as sharp as ever. But painting on such a big canvas only shows how impaired Michael Lehmann - who went on to direct My Giant and Because I Said So – is when it comes to anything involving ingenuity or wit.

© Joe Valdez

Sources
The Story of Hudson Hawk. Bruce Willis-Robert Kraft interview. November 2005

Hudson Hawk. DVD audio commentary track featuring Michael Lehmann. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, March 1999.

“Why The Hudson Hawk Budget Soared So High“. By James Greenberg. The New York Times, May 26, 1991

“Bruce Willis On the Level“. Entertainment Weekly, May 24, 1991

The Pang Brothers - 2008
Lionsgate Region 1 DVD

The Pang Brothers remake of their 1999 version of Bangkok Dangerous is not as good as the original, but neither is it as bad as some critics have have it. Perhaps making an English language film takes away a layer of the exotic that would be ascribed to work that was either largely in Thai or Cantonese. The Pangs are due auteurist consideration because of their consistent visual style and themes.

What is usually ignored is that the Pangs are Hong Kong filmmakers who primarily work in Thailand. This point is brought up because, as the Pangs are outsiders based on language and culture, their films are about outsiders. The main characters in the Pang films may be from another country, be differently abled, or simply find themselves, as in Re-Cycle as strangers in a strange land. In the original Bangkok Dangerous, the hitman is deaf, but his deafness works on his behalf so that he is not distracted by the sound of his gun. He is also from the country, and he and his friends are considered marginal even within the Thai underworld. The remake has Cage as the foreigner in Thailand, hired to do a job, but separated by culture and language.

With his hair dyed black, Cage sometimes appears like a ghost, or a cadaver. Early in the film, in part of his off screen narration, Cage's character, Joe, mentions disappearing like a ghost. The suggestion is that Joe is already dead, emotionally and morally, if not literally. This would also be fitting as part of the Pangs' other films which are frequently ghost stories. It is Joe's renewed sense of humanity that is his ultimate undoing. This is somewhat parallel to The Eye in which the blind woman is "cured", only to see a world more terrible than imagined.

As a switch from the first Bangkok Dangerous, Charlie Yeung portrays a deaf-mute pharmacist. While this allows the Pangs to again explore the dilemma of characters who are unable to communicate with each other, the scenes with Cage work against the film in presenting a tourist's view of Bangkok. We are to believe that Joe, a world traveler, would find Thai food too spicy, causing him to break out in a sweat. The scene with Cage and Yeung making friends with an elephant also feels contrived. What does work is a scene where Yeung hands Cage a note declaring her feelings for him while the two are walking in a deserted park at night. We see Yeung in close-up, absorbed in infatuation, while we see Cage taking on two would be muggers in the background. Yeung cannot hear what is going on and is completely unaware of what has happened behind her until she feels the splash of blood on her jacket. While the scene is a reworking of a similar scene from the first version, it is one of the few moments in the new Bangkok Dangerous that is perfectly realized.

Parts of the new Bangkok Dangerous look like they were filmed in the attempt to give the film international appeal. While this is understandable considering the higher financial stakes, it also forces compromise on filmmakers, often denying them the ability to make the kind of films that initially garnered attention. Even the Pangs disorienting visual style has been toned down considerably. While the first Bangkok Dangerous was down and dirty, the new film too often emphasizes the exotic side of Bangkok, and not enough of the dangerous.

Tonight, ABC has a Barbara Walters Special, CBS has The 35th Annual People’s Choice Awards, and The CW has the series premiere of 13: Fear Is Real.

Over on cable, FX has the second season premiere of Damages, History has a First Apocalypse special, MTV has the 21st season premiere of The Real World, Sci Fi has the return of new episodes of Ghost Hunters International, and TBS has the series premiere of Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns.

Was so happy to be actually using my own Internet connection to post yesterday, I forgot to mention that I was back online and things should be pretty much back to normal now.

Prime Picks

Scrubs (ABC): Repeats. Last night’s two episode that kicked off the show’s eighth season on its new network replay. Courteney Cox (Friends) begins her guest stint as Dr. Kelso’s replacement and really shakes things up. J.D. is dealing with a new set of interns.

The 35th Annual People’s Choice Awards (CBS): Special. Favorites in movies, music and television are honored in accordance how the public was polled. Runs two hours.

Solid Selections

Bones (FOX): Repeat. “The Perfect Pieces in the Purple Pool” episode from earlier this season replays, where a dismembered body is found in a purple pool and have to get some help from an incarcerated Zach to solve the case.

Bones (FOX): Repeat. “Aliens in a Spaceship” from season two replays, where a killer is leaving people buried alive and leaves them for dead if a ransom is not paid.

Law & Order (NBC): New. A child slavery ring is uncovered while investigating the murders of two divorce lawyers.

Cable Choices

Good Eats (Food Network): Repeats. Alton finds that The Dough Also Rises and decides to Popover Sometime. Both play again later.

Throwdown With Bobby Flay (Food Network): Repeats. Bobby competes in a “Falafel” battle and then in a “Muffaletta” battle. Both play again later.

Damages (FX): Season Premiere. This great show returns for its second season. I’ve seen the first three episodes and in my opinion it hasn’t dropped off in the least. The first episode ended in such a way that I was like I got to watch the next one and when I got to episode three, I was like bummed, cause now I have to wait until the 28th before there is an episode I haven’t seen. Also, the cast is amazing with Timothy Olyphant, Marcia Gay Harden, and William Hurt being added to the already outstanding Glenn Close and Ted Danson. Runs 70 minutes. Plays twice and again later. This is by far the best thing on tonight in the third hour timeslot and will continue to be so, even when everything is back with new episodes over the next couple of weeks. Lastly, I believe that you can get into this season’s mysteries and enjoy the season without having seen the first. While themes from the first season play into this season, they pretty much tell you enough about what happened to keep up with what is going on this season, but mostly the main mystery is completely new and has nothing to do with last season.

Other Options

• Tyler Perry’s House of Payne (TBS): Repeats. Six episodes replay. Four before the two episodes of Meet the Browns and two more after.
• Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns (TBS): Series Premiere. To honor his father’s dying wish, a man opens a retirement home and gets more than he could ever imagine.

Sports Notes

• ESPN has college basketball with Davidson at Duke followed by NBA action with the Miami Heat at the Denver Nuggets.
• ESPN2 has doubleheader college basketball action with Louisville at South Florida followed by Gonzaga at Tennessee.

TV Marathons

A&E has 10 episodes of Parking Wars that play twice.
Bravo has 13 episodes of Top Chef.
Oxygen has 14 episodes of Living Single.
Sci Fi has 11 episodes of Stargate Atlantis.
Spike has nine episodes of Unsolved Mysteries.

• Printable Winter 2008-09 TV Schedule v1.04 (PDF) - Last Updated: 12.11.2008 - Added some premiere and return dates.
• Printable Winter 2008-09 Cable TV Schedule v1.01 (PDF) - Last Updated: 12.04.2008 - Corrected the return date of The Closer and the premiere date of Trust Me on TNT and added a couple of HBO shows to Sunday nights.