Luck (HBO)

This is unexpected but not totally unsurprising news in light of today's third horse death on Michael Mann's HBO show Luck. Which is now officially canceled, after the American Humane Association halted all production yesterday.

Full memo below:

It is with heartbreak that executive producers David Milch and Michael
Mann together with HBO have decided to cease all future production on
the series LUCK.

Safety is always of paramount concern.  We maintained the highest
safety standards throughout production, higher in fact than any
protocols existing in horseracing anywhere with many fewer incidents
than occur in racing or than befall horses normally in barns at night
or pastures.  While we maintained the highest safety standards
possible, accidents unfortunately happen and it is impossible to
guarantee they won’t in the future.  Accordingly, we have reached this
difficult decision.

We are immensely proud of this series, the writing, the acting, the
filmmaking, the celebration of the culture of horses, and everyone
involved in its creation.

Quote from Michael Mann and David Milch:  “The two of us loved this
series, loved the cast, crew and writers.  This has been a tremendous
collaboration and one that we plan to continue in the future.”

Unlucky break for 'Luck'

Critics have already been effusive in their praise for Luck, the new HBO show created by David Milch. Executive produced by Michael Mann and by star Dustin Hoffman, the series sets out to expose the seedy underbelly of the thoroughbred racing scene.

But eagle-eyed viewers may notice one detail missing from the pilot episode, as well as one additional installment: the American Humane Association's usual seal of approval certifying that "No Animals Were Harmed" during the filming of the show. Instead, those two episodes state merely that "The American Humane Association Monitored the animal action."

That's because while Luck takes a hard look at those who exploit animals for money, the show itself has come under scrutiny after two of the horses used in the production broke their legs during filming and had to be euthanized.

PETA was the first to latch on to Luck's bad luck, in a January 27 article, "Nothing But Bad Luck for Horses in 'Luck,'" that noted:

While filming the show's pilot, a horse suffered a severe fracture after falling during a race sequence and was euthanized. Another horse was killed while filming a later episode.

While the pilot of the show includes a scene in which a horse breaks its leg and has to be put down, HBO told The Observer that the scene did not include the animal that actually died, but was accomplished using a combination of "trained" movie horses and CGI. The other horse death happened while shooting the seventh episode of the show; both were injured during short race scenes, and not during stunts segments.

According to a press release from the American Humane Association, also dated on January 27:

The horses were checked immediately afterwards by the onsite veterinarians and in each case a severe fracture deemed the condition inoperable. The decision was that the most humane course of action was euthanasia. An American Humane Certified Animal Safety Representative™ was monitoring the animal action on the set when the incidents occurred and observed the veterinarian on the set perform the soundness checks and approve the horses, prior to racing them. A full investigation and necropsy was conducted for each accident immediately afterwards...

American Humane Association is deeply saddened by the deaths of these two wonderful animals. Protecting the welfare of the animals we serve is not only our mission, it is the passion of each and every one of us who works for this program. Because of these accidents, the two episodes in question do not carry the full certification, “No Animals Were Harmed”^®.

Since then however, the certification has been given back to the show, after HBO worked with the association to develop additional safeguards. HBO emailed The Observer: "After the second accident, production was suspended while the production worked with AHA and racing industry experts to adopt additional protocols specifically for horse racing sequences. The protocols included but were not limited to the hiring of an additional veterinarian and radiography of the legs of all horses being used by the production. HBO fully adopted all of AHA’s rigorous safety guidelines before production resumed."

Kathy Guillermo, vice president of PETA, said  that PETA was now in contact with HBO, though the original article stated that efforts to reach out to Mr. Milch had been rebuffed. PETA is now demanding the names of the deceased horses, as well as their background, be released before the show. A source at HBO added that the necropsy results and the names of the horses are privileged information and will not be released.

Behind-the-Scenes Pedigree

Yes, everyone is excited to see a Martin Scorsese directed television show -- but how much input could he have had post-pilot when he's been busy working on a cadre of film projects? Based on that alone, Mann seems like he might be more invested in the success of Luck. And while everyone loves The Sopranos -- and though Matthew Weiner was able to break out on his own with Mad Men -- with due respect to Terence Winter: He isn't David Milch.

Advantage: Luck.

Cast

By sheer quantity, Boardwalk Empire wins in a landslide. Among the sprawling cast for the 1920s set Atlantic City epic are Steve Buscemi, Michael Shannon, Michael Pitt, Michael K. Williams, Kelly Macdonald, Paz de la Huerta, Dabney Coleman, Gretchen Mol, Michael Stuhlbarg and Stephen Graham. Still, Luck has its fair share of character actors, too -- Richard Kind, Jason Gedrick, Dennis Farina, John Ortiz -- and gets to boast about Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte. And those dudes are movie famous.

Advantage: Tie.

Longevity

With its ensemble feel and expansive backdrop, Boardwalk Empire feels like a show that could be on for years to come -- continually winning Emmy Awards, critical praise and a devoted audience. Luck will have those three things too -- Jon Hamm better win his Emmy before Dustin Hoffman starts getting nominated -- but does anyone think this is a series destined for the long haul? Like Michael Mann and Dustin Hoffman won't have other things to do (read: movies). And that's to say nothing of the outsized personalities of Hoffman, Mann, Milch and Nolte, which might adapt as well behind-the-scenes as oil does to water. Luck figures to burn bright and fizzle quick -- and there's nothing wrong with that. However...

Advantage: Boardwalk Empire.

So, a tie. Which should have been expected, since with shows the the only losers are those people who don't have HBO yet.

What’s Austrian for “not as good as we thought?” It was a tale of two weekends for Sacha Baron Cohen’s Brüno. On the one hand, the guerrilla comedy pulled down an estimated $30.4 million in ticket sales to pace the field; on the other, the total gross came in well below the high expectations that were set after Brüno opened with $14.4 million on Friday. There was no splitting the baby with the weekend’s other wide release: I Love You, Beth Cooper was a humongous bomb, landing in seventh place with just $5 million. As we do each Monday, here’s a breakdown of the top five at the box office.

1. Brüno: $30.4 million ($30.4 million total)

Obviously, Brüno wasn’t a sequel to Borat, but it sure performed like one: Almost half of Brüno’s ticket sales came on Friday. The alarming 39 percent drop from Friday to Saturday shows that those who wanted to see this film, saw it immediately, while everyone else just kind of shrugged and went to other comedies available to them; notice the slim drops lower down the chart for The Hangover (11 percent) and The Proposal (18 percent). Things won’t get much better in the weekends ahead: Viewers gave Brüno a C grade, according to Cinemascore, meaning word of mouth will be tenuous at best and flat-out crippling at worst. Borat, this is not.

2. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: $28.5 million ($120.5 million total)

After failing to top Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen over July 4, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs rebounded from a less-than-stellar opening salvo to hold off the giant robots in weekend two, easing just 31 percent in the process. With $120 million already in the coffers, the 3-D kiddie flick is on a similar pace to its predecessor, Ice Age: Meltdown, which hit $195 million domestically. However with Harry Potter looming large, reaching numbers that high might be a tad difficult. Don’t hold a collection for Fox, though: With an additional $191.9 million from foreign markets, Ice Age has already grossed enough worldwide to be considered a success.

3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: $24.2 million ($339.2 million total)

Despite a 43 percent drop from last weekend, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen still passed the total gross of the first Transformers and has now banked $339 million domestically to date. That it’s also up to nearly $675 million worldwide speaks to the popularity of this brand name. If you don’t think a third film is happening, think again.

4. Public Enemies: $14.1 million ($66.5 million total)

Never underestimate the drawing power of Johnny Depp. In just 11 days of release, Public Enemies has already become Michael Mann’s fourth-highest-grossing movie ever, and should eventually wind up with a total in the $90 million–to–$100 million range. Now that doesn’t mean the people at Universal are doing cartwheels—after all, Enemies cost north of $100 million to make and had a huge promotional campaign—but this isn’t the blood bath that we had expected after the tepid opening. Something tells us that if Public Enemies had starred someone other than Mr. Depp, this second weekend would have been much worse.

5. The Proposal: $10.5 million ($113.7 million total)

The Proposal held off The Hangover (Todd Phillips’s film has become the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever with $222.1 million) to finish in fifth place over the weekend, pushing its total grosses past $113 million. As it turns out, we were dead wrong about Ryan Reynolds. He is a movie star. And coming in 2010, he’ll have The Green Lantern to further prove that fact.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Michael Mann's Public Enemies is suffocated by historical accuracies, coming as it does from such a notoriously detail-oriented director. Not so! Mr. Mann’s script, co-written by Southland’s Ann Biderman and Ronan Bennett, is chock-a-block with dramatic license. For example: F.B.I. agent Melvin Purvis (a decidedly underused Christian Bale) did not account for the killing of every major bank robber in the 1930s, as the movie seems to purport. Not that we mind entirely—Public Enemies isn’t a History Channel special on John Dillinger after all—we just found it … interesting. Maybe the stories about Mr. Mann being obsessed with minutia are more of a legend than first thought. Either way, it’s not the only myth about Public Enemies being bandied about in the media. Here are some more! (Naturally, spoilers!)

Myth #1: Johnny Depp and Marion Cotillard have great chemistry.

This is to take nothing away from either of their performances—though, for the record, Ms. Cotillard is infinitely better than Mr. Depp, who ratchets his intensity just above drowsy—but all that stuff you’ve read about flying sparks and smoldering glances in Public Enemies is hogwash. Mr. Depp’s John Dillinger and Ms. Cotillard’s Billie Frechette couldn’t seem to care less about each other. Here’s a handy rule: When a movie constantly has to tell the audience how much one character loves another, over and over again, via the supporting players, there is something seriously wrong. Maybe with a better script this relationship would have been believable, but, as it stands, Sam and Mikaela in Transformers have a more developed pairing. This is not a good thing.

Myth #2: Digital photography makes a huge difference.

We don’t pretend to be experts in digital filmmaking, but what’s the big deal about its use in Public Enemies? For starters, Mr. Mann has done this before, and done this better in both Miami Vice and Collateral. Second, the digital technology produced a weird final image—everything was more muted, yet crisper at the same time. Meh. We’ve seen reviews say the gymnastics allow viewers to peer into Johnny Depp’s soul. All we saw was the glue affixing his fake mustache to his upper lip.

Myth #3: If you don't like Public Enemies, you're an idiot.

A popular meme about Public Enemies is that it won’t have long-term success at the box office because regular moviegoers won’t embrace what is essentially an “art film.” (Noted Internet hysteric Jeffrey Wells dedicated an entire blogpost to this stipulation last week.) Apparently you need to be a Rhodes Scholar to even "like" Public Enemies—never mind that the middle of the film features a 20-minute gun fight that was both louder and more violent than anything in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (seriously, too loud!); or that Ms. Cotillard gets  beaten and smashed in the head by brutal cops . Regular moviegoers aren’t intelligent enough to understand depth like that! If Public Enemies stumbles at the box office in the next couple of weeks, it’ll be because you commoners just don’t get real filmmaking! Yeah, right. Wake us when the elitism is over.

Ladies and gentlemen: We have a draw! Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs each pulled down an estimated $42.5 over Fourth of July weekend to tie atop the charts, meaning a winner won’t be decided until the final numbers are tallied later today. (Our money is on the kiddie flick.) Opening in third was the epic (and epically long) Public Enemies, which managed to heist an estimated $26.1 million, giving director Michael Mann the biggest opening weekend of his career. As we do each Monday, here’s a breakdown of the top five at the box office.

1. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: $42.5 million ($67.5 million total)

Even if Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs winds up ahead of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, this start has to be considered a huge disappointment. Despite opening on more screens than either of the previous Ice Age films, Dawn of the Dinosaurs had the lowest-grossing first weekend in the series. Worse, since opening last Wednesday, Dawn of the Dinosaurs has grossed $67.5 million over the five days. That’s an impressive number until you consider that both Up and Ice Age 2 each had higher opening weekends over the course of just three days … and without the added benefit of a holiday. Oh, and did we mention that since Dawn of the Dinosaurs is in 3-D, the ticket prices are higher? Not good.

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: $42.5 million ($293.5 million total)

While a 61 percent plunge from last weekend is alarming—the drop puts Revenge of the Fallen in Terminator Salvation territory—the Transformers sequel still managed to become the highest-grossing movie of 2009, flying by the very game Up to take control of the title. A total of $293.5 million in just 12 days is quite amazing, but, if you really want your eyes to pop, check out the foreign numbers: Revenge of the Fallen has already taken in some $298 million internationally, putting its worldwide grosses above $590 million. Maybe the Obama administration should let Michael Bay take a crack at the economy.

3. Public Enemies: $26.1 million ($41 million total)

The good news: If you take away the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, this is Johnny Depp’s third-biggest opener, behind only Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sleepy Hollow. Plus, with $41 million since debuting on Wednesday, Public Enemies will likely pass Michael Mann’s last summer entry, Miami Vice, sometime next weekend. The bad news: A very audience unfriendly affair—the film could only muster a B-grade from CinemaScore—we doubt Public Enemies will have the word of mouth to sustain prolonged successes at the box office. Time will tell here, but we aren’t that optimistic.

4. The Proposal: $12.7 million ($94.2 million total)

Where is the love for Anne Fletcher? The choreographer-turned-director (you’ve seen her dance moves in Hairspray and Walk Hard) has helmed three movies thus far—Step Up, 27 Dresses and, now, The Proposal—and each has grossed more than the last. Even better, when The Proposal passes the $100 million threshold, she’ll become only the 10th female director in Hollywood history to guide a film into triple-digit receipts. Give the woman her due, people!

5. The Hangover: $10.4 million ($204.1 million total)

The Hangover held off the sixth weekend of Up (which, with $264.8 million, is now the second-highest-grossing Pixar movie ever) to finish in the top five for the fifth straight week. At $204.1 million, Todd Phillips’ film will become the highest-grossing R-rated comedy sometime this week, surpassing the $209.2 million of Wedding Crashers. Future screenwriters take note: Comedies set in and around blessed nuptials are a pretty good bet for success.

America's enduring obsession with the folk-hero outlaws and gangsters of the 1930s is about to get ratcheted up a few notches. Ace director Michael Mann’s  Public Enemies, with Johnny Depp as an unlikely but undeniably mesmerizing John Dillinger, opens on July 1, but I liked it so much I am compelled to write about it early. I don’t think anyone will mind. Thrilling, glamorous, richly textured and breathlessly action-packed, it is one of the best movies of the year.

Eschewing biographical data and jumping instantly to the point, it begins in 1933 with the world’s most famous bank robber’s daring and imaginative breakout from a Lima, Ohio, jail (he literally walked right out into a waiting car). Since no cop could catch him and no prison could hold him, it was the first of many. For economically downtrodden Americans, it was the fourth year of the Great Depression, but for Dillinger and his gang, which included the psychotic Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham); the paranoid Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum); ruthless schemers Harry Pierpont (David Wenham) and Alvin Karpis (Giovanni Ribisi); and the murderous Homer van Meter (Stephen Dorff), it was the golden age of bank robberies. They’re all here—their depraved personalities, mind-boggling escapades, narrow escapes and horrible endings—inspired by Bonnie and Clyde and pursued with a vengeance by ace F.B.I. mongoose Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). The actors are uniformly wonderful, and the film never lags far from the action, even in the love scenes.

Yes, the story has been told before, in countless movies and TV shows, but the Dillinger played by Johnny Depp is such a lover that it soon becomes clear why his strange mixture of danger and charisma inspired foppish, inexperienced crime fighter J. Edgar Hoover to label him “Public Enemy No. 1” while the disillusioned public—broke and already unsympathetic to the banks that had lost their savings and foreclosed on their homes, farms and businesses—cheered him on as a modern-day Robin Hood. (During his heists, Dillinger often took the time to destroy loan files and mortgage records.) In his element among the crooked cops and flashy Roxie Harts of Chicago, Dillinger met and fell for his one and only. The girl who knocked his socks off was Billie Frechette, alluringly played by Oscar winner Marion Cotillard in her first role since Edith Piaf in the unforgettable La Vie en Rose. Billie is presented as a sweet, naïve country girl, half-French and half–Native American, from the Menominee Indian Reservation, who meets Dillinger at a dance in November 1933 and fears his aggressive overtures. In real life, she had already covered a lot of territory in the Chicago underworld, and her first husband was in prison for mail robbery when she met Dillinger. So becoming the lover of Public Enemy No. 1 was actually a rung up the ladder for an adventuress. They lived together as passionate companions until she was arrested in 1934 (although she drove a getaway car only one time) and served two years in prison for harboring a fugitive. She went on to live a respectable life until her death in 1969.

The movie catalogs this romantic subplot, juxtaposed with both the exploits of the Dillinger gang and the frustration of Southern gentleman G-man Purvis and the fledgling F.B.I., with its antiquated crime-detection techniques, in their efforts to trap them. There is violence (it’s a movie about gangsters, not naughty kids on skateboards), but it’s never as bloody as anything in a dozen Martin Scorsese movies. And the shootouts are leavened by humor. Dillinger is so full of cocky self-confidence that when he finally comes face to face with Purvis in prison, the exchange is surprisingly raffish. “What keeps you up nights, Mr. Dillinger?” asks Purvis.  “Coffee.” These are hoods who remain undaunted in their belief that no one can catch them (“They’re not tough enough, smart enough, or fast enough”), and even when he’s dragged off to prison to await execution under armed guards, buoyed by the “bravos” of the crowds outside, Dillinger remains optimistic. He was as adept at staging escapes as he was at robbing banks and taking hostages, and squeezed out of more tight spots than Harry Houdini. He may have been on the wrong side of the law, but there is no doubt whose side the audience is on. Transferred from an Illinois jail to an escape-proof state penitentiary in his native Indiana in 1934, Dillinger steals the car of the female county sheriff (Lili Taylor) and drives back across the state line, risking everything for a reunion with Billie. There’s a marvelous scene, tightly staged by director Mann’s all-encompassing camera, where he walks boldly into the Chicago Police Department, enters the Dillinger investigation offices, peruses the wall photos of everyone he’s known and lost (including Billie) and asks the preoccupied cops listening to a ball game, “What’s the score?” The events of July 22, 1934, when he met his fate at the hands of special agent Purvis and his agents outside Chicago’s Art Deco Biograph Theatre, where Dillinger had just watched Clark Gable and Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama, are brilliantly detailed, including footage of the movie itself. Ironically the press had nicknamed Purvis himself “the Clark Gable of the F.B.I.” You learn things. I never knew Dillinger had been set up by his moviegoing companion, an illegal brothel madam from Romania who betrayed him to Purvis to protect herself from being deported. (Excellent work by Branca Katic, one of the stars of the hit HBO series about Mormon polygamy, Big Love.) Even the Biograph marquee has been faithfully reproduced.  

It’s all here, exhaustively researched and painstakingly re-created. Curiously, there’s no mention of Dillinger’s wife, Beryl, and Michael Mann’s screenplay, co-written with Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, takes liberties by condensing some events and combining a few characters, but with so many informers, gunmen and tertiary historic plot contributors, it’s amazing that so few key elements found their way into the discard pile. From Billy Crudup, as the silly, publicity-seeking J. Edgar Hoover, to Johnny Depp’s magnetic starring role, replete with neatly cropped hair, piercing dark eyes, no sign of a tattoo and a lewd smile in the corner of his eyes, every role large and small is polished to perfection. (Johnny Depp gives the best performance of his career.) Even the bank plunders in broad daylight seem freshly staged. Since it’s more in the biographical vein of Bugsy than the grand opera of The Godfather, no easy comparisons come instantly to mind. But with the shiny cars with white-wall tires; the tailored, double-breasted pinstriped suits that give you an idea where Giorgio Armani’s fashion inspiration comes from; the music (lots of early Billie Holiday and big band jazz); and the navy blue midnight world of the Great Depression—Mr. Mann does more to illustrate the fabric of the gangster era than any film since Pete Kelly’s Blues.

In the process, Public Enemies becomes one glamorous, glorious, gun-blazing whale of an entertainment.

rreed@observer.com

Accordingly, the Times lists Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince as the biggest movie in 2009. Originally scheduled to be released around Thanksgiving, the sixth film in the series was pushed back to July so Warner Brothers could have a summer tent pole. In what we'd consider an upset, Michael Mann's 1930s gangster romp Public Enemies checks in at number two. Starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, Christian Bale as the FBI agent trying to bring him down and Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover, it might be Mr. Mann's chance at Oscar glory. Mr. Crudup and Mr. Bale are actually going to be quite busy next year. The Almost Famous star appears in Watchmen (number 4 on the list), while the Dark Knight himself starts yet another franchise reboot with Terminator: Salvation (number 9).

What struck us though was the exclusion of what are sure to be two of the most talked about movies of next year: Pixar's Up and Judd Apatow's Funny People. The just released teaser trailer for Up looks predictably amazing. The story of a grumpy old man (voiced by Ed Asner) who fulfills his deceased wife's dream of going on an African adventure by tying a bunch of balloons to his house and floating away is right in Pixar's melancholy wheel-house. As for Funny People, by the time it's released it'll be the first new directorial offering from Mr. Apatow in two years. A recent script review has us salivating that Funny People might be the fabled next step in his career: a funny, sad, warm and adult take on mortality and relationships... but with dick jokes. Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Eric Bana, Jason Schwartman and Jonah Hill star. Both films hit theaters next summer.

Here's the top-ten: