Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters (2006)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

Bill Couturié

Writers:

Peter Bart (book)
Peter Bart (screenplay)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

Hollywoods biggest talents explore what is the recipe for blockbuster, flops, and how absolute happenstance and controlled luck can make movie magic. |

Plot Keywords:

Blockbuster | Hollywood | Star Wars | Film History | Tinseltown

Awards:

Nominated for Primetime Emmy.

Cast

Peter Bogdanovich	...	Himself
Pierce Brosnan	...	Himself
David Brown	...	Himself
Charles Chaplin	...	(archive footage)
George Clooney	...	Himself
Francis Ford Coppola	...	Himself (archive footage)
Bill Couturié	...	Himself (voice)
Danny DeVito	...	Himself
Richard Dreyfuss	...	Himself
Robert Evans	...	Himself
Jodie Foster	...	Herself
Morgan Freeman	...	Himself
Brian Grazer	...	Himself
Peter Guber	...	HImself
Daryl Hannah	...	Madison / Ayla (archive footage)
Oliver Hardy	...	(archive footage)
Willard Huyck	...	Himself
Gloria Katz	...	Herself
Buster Keaton	...	(archive footage)
Sherry Lansing	...	Herself
Stan Laurel	...	(archive footage)
Simone Mareuil	...	(archive footage)
Penny Marshall	...	Herself
Steve McQueen	...	(archive footage)
Sydney Pollack	...	Himself
Robert Redford	...	Johnny Hooker / Roy Hobbs / Denys George Finch Hatton (archive footage)
Leo Rossi	...	Cliff 'Scorpion' Albrect (archive footage)
Tom Rothman	...	Himself
John Singleton	...	Himself
Steven Spielberg	...	Himself (archive footage)
David Strathairn	...	Edward R. Murrow (archive footage)
Charlize Theron	...	Herself
Rudolph Valentino	...	(archive footage)
Nia Vardalos	...	Herself
Richard D. Zanuck	...	Himself

Runtime:

USA:75 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

HBO Films

Quotes:

Morgan Freeman: [about "Bonfire of the Vanities"] When an airliner crashes, they say that it's usually caused by a series of mishaps.

Movie Connections:

Features Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Pointless collection of people talking about flops and hits never amounts to much of anything

Easily the dumbest documentary HBO has ever been involved in this is a "look" at what makes a hit or a flop. Using loose subject headings various people talk about how we can never know what will hit or what will miss. We see how the rules of one moment don't apply to the next. There is also a good deal of discussion about how all film making is a crap shoot since what should work very often doesn't.

Actually what this film is lots of stars and studio execs sitting in chairs telling "witty stories" about the films that worked and the films that failed all the while trying to come across as "gee whiz" nice guys. While the stories are interesting the film quickly reveals that there isn't much of a point, or if there is one, the point doesn't require 75 minutes to have it beaten into your head. Its the sort of movie where some one says Howard the Duck and expects it to get big laughs. We also get rapid fire clips from the various movies that are suppose to illustrate the point but are too brief and fleeting to be much beyond a visual reference. Its so many people talking so briefly about so many different movies, or speaking so generally that you get no real information about anything. Yes, there are some telling remarks about life in Tinseltown but its much ado about nothing since its the equivalent to reading a book of quotes on the movies with nothing beyond the quotes. Personally, I was bored and after half an hour I picked up a magazine and began to read.

If you like movies give it a try,after all there are some good lines and confessions (George Clooney on responsibility and Brian Grazer on wishing someone else's failure) but its too long and never adds up to anything worth anything.