Holiday Preview

New York Times Sunday "Holiday Movie" section has arrived. Interesting to try and read into the general feeling towards the movies based on tiny writeups. Descriptions of The New World, Geisha and Ellie Parker (with Naomi Watts) read as snarky/bitchy. And this section needs a fact-checker. Adultery thriller Match Point is called a "romantic comedy" which it is clearly not and Freedomland is listed as arriving on December 2nd even though it's been moved to 2006. (This paper is daily so they don't have an excuse to miss old news...)

Performances and Films
Crazy delicious rave for Michelle Williams in Brokeback that calls her a "first rate dramatic actress." Can she give Keaton a run for the gold in supporting? Notes on Casanova don't seem derogatorily-laced at all. Sienna Miller gets very good ink. The write-up on A Good Woman is kind only to Helen Hunt (sight unseen) which is weird because she looks like the worst element in the trailer. The actual articles (as opposed to the general preview capsules) focus on Match Point, Geisha, Producers, New World, Get Rich or Die Tryin', Narnia, and Michael Haneke's Caché. And Match Point star Jonathan Rhys-Meyers starts the drum beating for his Woody Allen calling him "the world's greatest living director". Haven't heard that said about the Woodster in quite a while, have you?

Studio Breakdown Universal Pictures has a two page full color spread for The Producers, King Kong, and Munich. They seem to want to pull off a Miramax 2002 coup and totally dominate the Oscar Best Picture race in the space of 9 days (Dec 14th to 23rd). That ain't easy to do. SPC has a one page b&w ad for Breakfast on Pluto, Three Burials..., White Countess, and Cachéall premiering in a one month frame... and Warner Bros has three full color pages but they're less Oscar minded and more -look at our potential hits! Finally, Dreamworks has a great full page ad for Match Point. Their marketing on that film seems very focused with the tag "the runaway sensation of the Cannes Film Festival" (just like in the trailer). It's smart to pick a good angle and really drive it.

You can read most of the articles here.