Movie Themes

Autobiographical movies are the most personal of "personal movies," and big U.S. studios rarely champion personal movies of any kind. Noah Baumbach based his corrosive yet empathic new indie, "The Squid and the Whale," on his parents' marital breakup when he was a teenager. It's a welcome addition to the small body of American features that put their creators' lives onscreen with unprecedented directness and intensity.

Although the gangster film came of age in America in the 1930s with such classics as "Public Enemy" with James Cagney, "Little Caesar" starring Edward G. Robinson, and Paul Muni in "Scarface," the genre quickly made its way across the Atlantic when French filmmakers realized these provocative movies could easily be given a Gallic sensibility. French cinema found its perfect gangster hero in tough-guy-with-a-heart Jean Gabin, who appeared in such films as "Pepe le Moko" and "Le Jour Se Leve."

Why is Hollywood calling the police? Filmmaker Ron Shelton, who has no fewer than three cop-themed films headed for theaters this year, says the contemporary movie industry turns to police not for blockbuster potential or from some cultural urge, but simply as an easy format for telling almost any kind of story. "Audiences are comfortable going to a cop movie, just the way they used to go to westerns," he said during an interview.

"It's the program of the moment," said the personal assistant of one of the Sinatras, referring to HBO's "The Rat Pack." This was not an exclamation of celebration but of media-savvy resignation.

Businesswoman Inez Brand spent all day Friday in Los Angeles attending a conference, but she was determined to fly back to her Dallas hometown in time to see "How Stella Got Her Groove Back." In Los Angeles, Reyna Gaar had to buy "Stella" tickets several hours in advance on Saturday at the Magic Johnson Theatres, where the show consistently sold out through the weekend despite being shown on seven screens.

When Kevin Williamson was 12 years old, he went to see "Halloween," John Carpenter's 1978 low-budget horror film, 10 times. The movie's intense impact on its audience--which alternately shrieked at and talked to the screen, warning the characters of their doom--made him decide, then and there, to become a filmmaker. In 1996, he made good on that vow. Williamson's horror-comedy "Scream"--his screenwriting debut--was packed with references to "Halloween" and other scary films.

In the late 1950s, author Norman Mailer wrote a provocative essay for Dissent magazine titled "The White Negro." The piece attempted to pop-psychologize the white male's need to feel and act "black," specifically regarding the impact of jazz on the hippest sectors of the culture at that time. Mailer's sense of "the white Negro" has transcended the era in which it was originally written, and has recently mounted an impressive comeback, with Hollywood as its most visible proponent.

Yes, the weather's still hot and the kids are still out of school, but as far as the studios are concerned, summer is over and it's time to start thinking about . . . next summer. With the industry's busiest season winding down, and the holiday releases more or less set, planning for next year is underway--and summer '99 is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Variety was the spice of summer 1998. Any given week during the Memorial Day to Labor Day season, which will contribute as much as 40% of the film industry's expected $6.5 billion in theatrical revenues for the year, offered an unusually varied menu that finally seemed to break free of the grip of catering only to the appetites of young males. "It was a good solid summer," says Disney Chairman Joe Roth, whose studio had the season's most expensive and top-grossing film, "Armageddon."

With this summer's "Godzilla" a proven disappointment despite its $134-million gross, the legacy of James Whale, who essentially invented the modern monster movie, seems smarter (if less heeded) than ever. Whale, the Hollywood director of "Frankenstein" and "The Bride of Frankenstein" in the 1930s, "invested the central character of the genre--the monster, if you will--with human qualities," Whale's biographer, James Curtis, says.