Looking back on 2010, and forward to the Oscars.

Part One.   By Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

I was out of the country most of December, but as I left I did a quick inventory of the years’ noteworthy American theatrical films.  It wasn’t much of a list; “The Social Network,” “The Kids Are Alright,” “Cyrus,” “Inception,”  “Winter’s Bone,” and Clint Eastwood’s underappreciated, “Hereafter.”  Just below that were several others, good enough to keep you out of trouble on a Saturday night; “The Town,” “Unstoppable,”  “Easy A,” and, with some reservations, “I Love You Phillip Morris.” But not much else.

“Inception” is the undisputed roller coaster ride of 2010, and in its category nothing else comes close. The others, produced for comparative peanuts, exist on an entirely different plane.  But even with a list this short, there are caveats. I admired “Winter’s Bone,” more than I actually enjoyed it; it was less compelling that 2009’s “Frozen River,” in more or less the same genre.  “Philip Morris,” is uneven, and really belonged to 2009, when it played at Sundance. Bottom line; for American movies, 2010 was disappointing.

I came back to an entirely changed landscape.  A half dozen theatrical features had found favor with both critics and audiences; “The Fighter,” “Black Swan,” “True Grit,” “Blue Valentine,” and the unexpected blast from Britain, “The King’s Speech.” (I’d add “Casino Jack” to that list, but it didn’t catch on.) Each of these titles is high end entertainment, and each had accumulated close to triple its production budget. (I don’t mean to snub the documentaries, in a year with several standouts; I just consider them in a class of their own.)

There were other, more predictable developments. Several big studio films bombed horribly, including a couple of pricey comedies that nobody seemed to love, an overpriced, effects driven sci- fi, and the usual tepid sequels; all of which were struggling to break even.

Understand one thing about the American movie business; big budget action flicks and star driven comedies pay more salaries and studio overhead than any of the low budget, scrappy dramas that audiences are currently responding to in large numbers. And none of them has a shot at a gross like “Inception,” which worldwide, has corralled about 825 million, not counting the DVD, which has to be huge. Warner’s shelled out 160 million just to get “Inception” in the can, before they spent dollar one on marketing.  But even if you add another 100 million to the production budget, the film is a phenomenon.

Before I start on the separate virtues of this happy handful, which you may have already seen, let’s do a comparison between their cost and. theatrical gross, using very basic numbers. Keep in mind; these figures do not include the coming revenues from DVDs or TV, which, although downplayed by the industry, are very significant.

“The Kids are Alright” Cost: 3.5 million.  Gross: 20 million.

“The Fighter,” Cost: 25 million. Gross: 80 and climbing.

“Black Swan,” Cost: 13 million. Gross now approaching 100.

“True Grit,” Cost: 38 million. Gross: 148 and still climbing.

“Blue Valentine,” Cost: 1 million. Gross: 6 million, and still going.

“Winter’s Bone,” Cost: 1 million . Gross: 4 million.

Let’s add to that the Brit hit, “The King’s Speech,” with a negative cost of 15 million that has so far piled up 80 in the US, and is quite likely to reach 100 before the Academy’s big night. “Speech” is likely to make its distributor, The Wienstein Company, which has had its share of big losers the past couple years, (remember “9”?) profitable for some time to come.

Each of 2010’s awards nominees boasts a distinct voice and style. Each features well known actors, (other than “Winter’s Bone,”) who most certainly took less than their agents’ quotes, if for no other reason than to work in projects driven by a vision, in both style and content.

In terms of audience appeal, the films are vastly different. But each is the sort of movie that movie lovers tend to seek out; distinctive but at the same time, familiar.

It’s no surprise that every one of them works first as entertainment.  But the sort of entertainment that requires the viewer to pay attention to what’s happening on screen. Even the remake of “True Grit,” which sprouted in the shadow of John Wayne’s classic, has been realized with a unique style that sets it apart from the original.   And ironically, each is rooted in the kind of narrative filmmaking pioneered by the studios, the sort of storytelling they’ve more or less abandoned in the obsessive drive to generate Spider Man sized profits.

The studios distributed these smaller movies, and they’ll make money on them.  But they’ll also fail to make money on most of their bigger budget projects.

In order to understand why things go wrong you have to understand that the studios are more about business plans than filmmaking. And their main target is teenagers.

They dream that if the young demographic turns out en masse the rest of us will follow suit, if for no other reason than curiosity. But it hasn’t worked that way lately.  Teenagers do show up on opening weekend, eagerly plunking down expendable cash for the latest 3D thrill machine.  But when it stinks halfway through, they take action, tweeting and texting others of their tribe, warning them off. In that way, they can dampen enthusiasm for a movie more effectively than the fussy and largely aging critical establishment.

It’s not that there isn’t a healthy appetite for another installment of the “Fokkers,” or “Narnia,” or the reboot of “Tron.” It’s just that there isn’t enough of an audience for those films to make a profit when production comes in between 120 and 200 million.  And that’s not including marketing, which on a big studio release has to come in north of 20 million.

The next biggest audience for studio films is the overseas market.  On paper at least, big action movies like “Green Hornet,” (120 million,) “Tron,” (170 million,) and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” (150 million,) have a chance of recouping their production costs on foreign soil.  The thinking is that the masses of non English speakers are even less critical than our masses.

Sometimes this strategy works… especially when the big studios cut deals with foreign distributors ahead of production, or send the movies out under their own banners, (thus collecting a larger share of revenues.)  But when the movies are so oversized, like “Gulliver’s Travels,” (112 million,) “How Do You Know,” (120 million,) and “Prince of Persia, (200 million,) and fail so miserably, it’s hard to see how the studios stay in business.

“Prince of Persia,” is a good example of how a big budget can overwhelm even a successful theatrical run. A Disney product, made by super producer Jerry Bruckheimer, this fantasy/ adventure,  intended to kick off a franchise, brought in close to 95 million here in the US; a disaster considering its cost.  But overseas the film was huge, raking in what looks like a phenomenal figure; 235 million.  But considering that the studios only get half of that, the film, with a reported negative cost of 200 mil, was still a bomb.

That’s the business, and there’s little chance it’ll change in the near future. Not until they get burned over and over will studios refrain from throwing huge amounts of cash at projects like “Green Hornet.”  They will spend huge sums getting these concept movies made and then spend almost as much trying to create the desire for teenagers to see them. Hoping and praying to birth the next “Spider Man.”

I endured twenty minutes of this hapless bore in a theater the other night, while waiting for “Blue Valentine,” to start.  No one asked for “Green Hornet,” and the handful of kids whose parents had deposited them there, probably while they were shopping, didn’t seem to care for it either;  they ran through the aisles like lab rats.

I know this sounds tired; I promise to refrain from this kind of rant for at least a couple of months. But at this point in the new year, in the afterglow of some really good movies, what we’re getting instead, is the worst of the worst. This week alone, two national releases; “Sanctum,” and “The Roommate” have been pronounced dead on arrival.

I was actually looking forward to “Sanctum.” James Cameron’s name appeared above the title. The trailer was promising. The locales were intriguing. But after a hail of boos that greeted its arrival, and the dismal results of the first exit surveys I can’t force myself to see it.

Next week I’ll return to a discussion of what makes this year’s Oscar contenders worth the time and struggle that went into their creation. Until then, either catch up on them yourself, or hold your breath.