Film Reviews
By Nathaniel Bell

Not Coming To A Theater Near You

September 30 th saw the release of two of the year's best films—“Duma” and “Oliver Twist.” They were intelligent. They were beautifully made.

And they were box office failures.

For an industry that worships the Almighty Dollar, this is a capital offense. But films aren't to blame. The guilt actually falls on the movie studios themselves, who frequently sabotage their own films before they've been given a chance.

“Duma,” with its mythical storytelling and breathtaking scenery, is a grandly entertaining movie. Directed by Carroll Ballard, the extravagantly talented auteur behind such classics as “The Black Stallion,” “Never Cry Wolf,” and “Fly Away Home,” it tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy (Alex Michaletos) as he journeys across South Africa to return his pet cheetah to the wild. Originally, this independently financed film was never supposed to see the light of day, but during a preview period in April, several critics—among them Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times—rallied behind it, appealing for a wider theatrical release. They eventually got their wish, but since the studios refused to spend any money on advertising, “Duma” vanished almost as soon as it appeared. Opening to a paltry 42 theaters without so much as a television commercial to announce its presence, it lingered for two or three weeks, then promptly bit the dust. Meanwhile, upscale Hollywood junk like “The Pacifier” and “Are We There Yet?” earned a collective $200 million, partly because every public bus in L.A. sported a picture of Vin Diesel on it.

I'm convinced audiences can handle mature, handcrafted films like “Duma.” They just don't know what they're missing. If anyone is to blame, it's the media at large. In essence, the studios are murdering some of their best projects by withdrawing publicity so that nobody hears about them and then blaming an uninterested public when the film inevitably flops.

One can only hypothesize as to why “Oliver Twist”—an easy candidate for the best English-language film released so far this year—vanished in a similar fashion. Maybe it's that the idea of Roman Polanski (the Polish director infamously charged with statutory rape in 1978) directing a children's film that audiences found appalling. But I doubt it. Regardless of personal demons, Polanski (with ample help from screenwriter Ronald Harwood) has crafted one of the finest Dickens adaptations ever made. The story of a young orphan's flight from the horrors of Victorian England is so immediately powerful, so profoundly compassionate, and so fraught with human emotion, it should be mandatory viewing for serious audiences (older children included).

“Oliver Twist” opened with little fanfare to some egregiously misguided reviews, and after two full weeks of limited release (nearly 800 theaters), withered and died. It didn't even coin enough pennies to compensate for its flaccid advertising campaign, let alone its $60 million budget. Whereas some films have survived on word of mouth, starting humbly and gradually gaining momentum (“Napoleon Dynamite,” “Memento,” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”), others—as is the case with “Duma” and “Twist”—are yanked from theaters before the public is even aware of their existence.

I don't think the studios know what they've got. It's easy enough to peddle a period piece that's got Johnny Depp in it (like the forthcoming “The Libertine”), or an animal film in which Chris Rock and Ben Stiller provide the voices (“ Madagascar ”). But is it really such a chore to announce a period piece in which the only recognizable name to American audiences is British thespian Ben Kingsley, or an animal film that relies on character development instead of rude jokes?

Send me your opinions at nbell@netlistings.com