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"Psycho" and "The Popcorn Champs" at Onion AV Club

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
21 replies | jump to latest

In my quest for "movie criticism reading" around the net, I stumbled onto a series of articles at the "Onion AV Club" movie pages called "The Popcorn Champs."

"The Popcorn Champs" is out to discuss the "Number One Grossing Movie of the Year" for every movie year -- starting in 1960. So -- aha -- already of interest here.

The column runs every two weeks and so the most recent Number One is for 1992: Aladdin -- the Robin Williams cartoon version.

I would guess within a week or so the next column will be on Jurassic Park(1993.) And then Forrest Gump(1994.)

But there is real interest in starting with the first column (written over a year ago) and seeing not only all the Number One Grossers from 1960 to 1992...but to see how Number One Grossers CHANGED over the decades.

For instance, the 1960s had three musicals at Number One: West Side Story(1961), My Fair Lady(1964), and The Sound of Music(1965.) Thus came at us all the failed musicals later: Thoroughly Modern Millie(with John Gavin star-billed and funny in perhaps his last major role); Camelot, Star...and my favorites: Finian's Rainbow, Hello Dolly, and Paint Your Wagon(I like all three of those, and Dolly made a lot of money, but not enough.) And no more Number One grossing musicals until 1978(Grease) and...no more since then?

There are a lot of "obvious" ones: The Godfather, The Exorcist, Jaws, Star Wars.

But there are some surprises:

2001 was the top grossing movie of 1968?(I thought it was an art film/cult film.) And yet, also in that counterculture year the SECOND highest grossing film was The Odd Couple -- which I DO remember as a big hit with lines around the block and a best selling record(music AND comedy scenes) -- but which was stagebound middle-aged comfort food.

And how about the top grossing film of 1966?....The Bible, as directed with a mix of ambition and awkwardness by John Huston(who plays Noah in it.)

I decided of all the Number One grosses from 1960 to 1992, the worst is: Three Men and a Baby (from 1987.) Funny, I remember that year as the year of the "cop buddy movie" Lethal Weapon, Stakeout and my favorite of 1987(and the decade): The Untouchables.

And here's where "The Popcorn Champs" gets interesting. In each column, after centering on the Number One grosser of the year, the writer either talks at length about the Number Two grosser of that year -- or simply picks "one of the other hits" to talk about. And for 1987, the writer's favorite was: The Untouchables. Good taste.

[–] davodikum (6197) 4 years ago

Lethal weapon wipes the floor with the Untouchables. IMO.

[–] davodikum (6197) 4 years ago

I'd also rather watch stakeout again then the Untouchables. Not say the Untouchables is bad.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Lethal weapon wipes the floor with the Untouchables. IMO.

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Here is an interesting bit of trivia:

Some time in 1986, Mel Gibson was presented with two scripts and he could only pick one for his next project: Lethal Weapon or The Untouchables(as Elliott Ness.)

Mel went with Lethal Weapon.

And his rather "dead" career (despite some fame as Mad Max, too many dramas like Mrs. Soffe, The River, and The Bounty) suddenly took off again. And he became an action star. And he got THE franchise that would make him zillions.

If Mel had chosen Elliott Ness...who would have taken Lethal Weapon? TV star Bruce Willis, perhaps? But then....

[–] davodikum (6197) 4 years ago

Yeah no idea who could play that character better, probably no-one. But yeah good move on his part.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Yeah no idea who could play that character better, probably no-one. But yeah good move on his part.

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I remember that some entertainment reporter noted that Gibson had made that choice. Personally, though I knew The The Untouchables and Ness through the old TV show, I had no idea what Lethal Weapon was about. But Mel did.

Perhaps Mel realized that The Untouchables threw a lot of the story to the Connery character and to DeNiro as Al Capone. Ness isn't really the most important character. But in Lethal Weapon, Martin Riggs is one of two leads -- in a black white team(48 HRS had been a hit in this regard), and Riggs is the bigger lead.

I'm guessing that Mel did NOT see the huge potential for sequels in Lethal Weapon. II was bigger than I.

[–] davodikum (6197) 4 years ago

I for sure agree. Ness and Riggs are both main characters, but the Riggs role is more juicy. Plus no-one really gets famous playing a historical figure. You need to find a fictional character that only you as an actor can be associated with.

[–] davodikum (6197) 4 years ago

Lethal weapon was gritty, funny and cutting edge. Untouchables was polished and took itself to seriously I think.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Lethal weapon was gritty, funny and cutting edge. Untouchables was polished and took itself to seriously I think.

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Lethal Weapon came out of the "Joel Silver factory" that would soon give us Die Hard, Road House, and The Last Boy Scout -- and that had given us 48 HRS and Commando. Not to mention sequels to half of those.

Ever notice how Lethal Weapon and Die Hard have not only the same musical composer(Michael Kamen) but pretty much the same SCORE? Its almost like Die Hard is a sequel to Lethal Weapon, musically. I think Die Hard has a better script though -- the head villain(Alan Rickman) is a big deal compared to the guy in Lethal Weapon(the boss, not the Gary Busey character.)

Versus "the Joel Silver machine," The Untouchables came out of the auteuristic style of Hitchcock copycat Brian DePalma -- here held in check with a great David Mamet script and not much room for Hitchcock stuff. I love The Untouchables for its story, its characters, its score but..again..to each our own.

[–] davodikum (6197) 4 years ago

I need to re-watch the Untouchables. I never noticed the similarities in the score between diehard and LW. I always remember a lot of saxophone in LW and none in die hard .
I agree about the villains. But die hard needed a better villain because it didn't have the buddy cop vibe to it which focuses more on the friendship than the relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist.

[–] swanstep (2715) 4 years ago

@davodikum. ecarle & I discussed Lethal Weapon in an epic old thread where I tried to watch all of Edgar Wright's top 1000 movies that I hadn't seen:

https://moviechat.org/tt0054215/Psycho/58c7074b4e1cf308b9383a3d/OT-Edgar-Wrights-Fave-1000-films?reply=58c7074b4e1cf308b9383a55

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The writer makes the interesting point that some of these "Number One grossers" of a given year may be WRONG. As an example, he says that though he names My Fair Lady as the Top Grosser of 1964 -- he saw ANOTHER list that had ANOTHER musical(Mary Poppins) as Number One.

Which brings us to Psycho of course.

In his "kick off" "Popcorn Champs" column, for 1960, the writer does briefly talk about Psycho -- "the most influential and masterly movie of the year" and names it as the Number Two Grosser for 1960.

With Spartacus as the Number One grosser of 1960. Hmm...though I always see Psycho as Number Two, Number One has been listed as Ben-Hur(a 1959 release) and Swiss Family Robinson on other lists I've read. This is the first time I've seen Spartacus at Number One.

Which leads to another problem with these "Popcorn Champ" columns. The writer alludes -- but not clearly -- to adding RE-RE-RELEASE grosses to a movie -- over YEARS -- to get that Number One grosser slot. This is how 2001 gets there, I think, and Spartacus, too.

But the most surprising Number One Grosser (evidently using re-releases) is for 1971: Billy Jack. Billy Jack??!! In the year of Dirty Harry and The French Connection and heck, even Fiddler on the Roof -- BILLY JACK?? But I do recall that movie being dragged out every few months for a re-release. In the 70's, this was also done with Walking Tall(Joe Don Baker cracks heads) and Jeremiah Johnson(Robert Redford, 70's granola mountain man.)

Here's a Number Two grosser of the year that rather fascinates me: Doctor Zhivago, for 1965 , behind (way behind) The Sound of Music. Its beautiful, its epic but..its pretty boring, really, its extremely long, and its amazing to me that a movie of THAT type could have driven such huge audiences. Were they middle-aged? College students interested in the theme song and the tragic romance?

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Indeed, looking at a lot of those top grossers for the 60's and the 70's, one can clearly see the "devolution" of hit movies -- you get Number Two Grosser of the year like Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia(after the D-Day epic, The Longest Day, at Number One for 1962) and the list moved on to ...Return of the Jedi....Top Gun...Home Alone...

...and they haven't gotten there yet, but when they finally reach 2008(The Dark Knight), will there be any Number One grossers that are NOT about comic book heroes? That are NOT sequels or remakes?

Oh, well, things evolve. But that "Popcorn Champs" list of columns does show us how blockbusters were, once upon a time, "surprises"(like Psycho and ET and Back to the Future) and not pre-packaged.

Here's another surprise: The Number One Grosser of 1979: Kramer vs Kramer. The Number One Grosser of 1988: Rain Man. That's two for Dustin Hoffman...in dramas? Alien in 1979 was only Number Six; Die Hard in 1988 was a hit, but the column can't name a number. Here's a guess: Alien and Die Hard were R-rated. Cuts down on chances for Number One(just as Home Alone and ET are in great shape to bring in the kids.)

But back to 1960: The columnist writes long and in-depth on Spartacus; briefly(and with the requisite respect) about Psycho and then offers as his personal favorite -- The Apartment. Nifty about ALL these columns: while "in the olden days" when you read about a movie, all that accompanied the article(at best) was a production still or a frame capture from the movie itself - with THESE columns, you get YouTube clips to push a button right in the article, and you can SEE the scenes in question. So there is the sublimely agonizing scene with the broken mirror in The Apartment, and you don't need to read a thing more.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I find that Psycho interacts -- in different ways -- with both Spartacus and The Apartment -- in 1960.

Spartacus first. Both films share John Gavin as a star. When someone reminded Gavin that he was in two classics in 1960- Psycho and Spartacus, he quipped, "If I'd known they were going to be classics, I would have paid more attention to what was going on when I made them." Ha -- or a sign of non-commitment to the cause.

Both films were made at Universal-International(though Psycho was released by Paramount) and if you turned your head on the Universal backlot in 1959 and 1960, you could look at the Psycho house and then look at the Spartacus gladiator school -- about 100 yards apart and sharing the same brushy hills.

But mainly this: the bloody violence in Spartacus proved to be worse than the violence in Psycho. Some bloody shots were removed from Spartacus -- Kirk Douglas chopping off a man's arm in battle; red blood spurting onto Laurence Olivier's face from the neck of the man he has just stabbed to death -- and only restored decades later(along with an attempted gay seduction of Tony Curtis -- hey, there, Janet Leigh's husband -- by Olivier.)

Psycho went into theaters with minimal cuts(of stabs to Arbogast, of blood on Norman's hands; of Janet Leigh's bare back)...that are only being restored this year. But it would seem that Psycho and Spartacus both made some history in 1960 by being more graphic in their violence than other movies. There's this difference, though: the blood and killing in Spartacus is of MEN , in battle or gladiatorial combat; in Psycho, the blood and killing are of men AND women -- and done by a hideous grotesquery of an Old Lady, thus fueling nightmares of reality that Spartacus doesn't transmit.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

If Psycho and Spartacus are bound by blood, Psycho and The Apartment are connected in a more subtle way: they are both contemporary black-and-white tales out to "push the 1960 envelope" about matters of sex(and violence in Psycho's case)...and both films rather undercut the Doris Day take on American life in 1960 by showcasing people who are financially struggling and depressed over romantic frustrations.

Reading the "Popcorn Champs" essays, as one watches the "Number One Grossers" of the years move on to the 80's -- Raiders, ET, Beverly Hills Cop, Back to the Future , Top Gun -- there's something about Psycho, Spartacus, and The Apartment that feels a lot more adult about the movies. And yet -- just as entertaining.

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Sidebar on Hitchcock and The Popcorn Champs.

A column series that starts in 1960 pretty much doesn't cover much Hitchcock. The writer duly notes Psycho in 1960, and then PERSONALLY selects The Birds as his favorite of the hits of 1963(Cleopatra was the Number One grosser yet still the flop of the year -- it couldn't make its money back.)

One realizes that from 1960 on, only when Hitchcock truly invaded the national consciousness -- with Psycho and The Birds(also bringing in the all important youth audience) -- was he relevant. And Number Two Gross was as high as he went -- Psycho, pretty big hit, pretty famous work of art. "The Popcorn Champs" column reaches Psycho and The Birds, but never reaches Marnie, Torn Curtain(even with Julie Sound of Music/Mary Poppins Andrews in it), Topaz, or even Frenzy, let alone Family Plot.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

One ALSO realizes that Hitchcock really never wanted to do the things you do to GET a Number One hit. The musicals and epics that won Oscars back then were very expensive to make. Jack Warner paid $ 5 million for the rights to My Fair Lady -- Hitchcock paid 9 THOUSAND dollars for the rights to Psycho. Hitchcock flew "under the radar" and delivered solid hits(usually in the top 20 of the year) while also developing a year-by-year reputation as a "star director" matched by none. (GREAT directors matched him a lot -- they just weren't stars at his level.)

From what I can see, Hitchocck spent the most money on North by Northwest -- to get three big stars, to mount three big action set-pieces, and to travel the country filming his great script -- and that paid off with a hit, but not a Number One grosser(that would be Ben-Hur that year.)

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7699) 4 years ago

Billy Jack isn't even available on DVD. I myself like the Untouchables but would rather watch Lethal Weapon or Die Hard. Also I am in the minority but hate that Sean Connery won for the Untouchables over Denzel Washington in Cry Freedom and Morgan Freeman in Street Smart.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Billy Jack isn't even available on DVD.

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Hmmm...well, it always had rather a "cult" quality, from the stars(Tom Laughlin and his wife) to its mix of pacifism and violence, to its low budget feel.

Tom Laughlin is one of those weird Hollywood stories -- kicked around for years never really making it, but finally DID -- with that one movie and its one payday(two sequels didn't perform.)

Tom Laughlin connects to "Psycho" in two ways:

In 1960 -- "kicking around" 11 years before Billy Jack -- Laughlin was on a list of actors considered to play Sam Loomis in Psycho (along with Leslie Nielsen and Cliff Robertson!)

Also in 1960, Tom Laughlin is in the college sex comedy "Tall Story" as the college friend of Tony Perkins and Jane Fonda(basketball player/cheerleader.) Tom and his sexy wife show off their "trailer shower"(in 1960, married couples can have sex in the movies) and the movie ends with Tony and Jane married and in the trailer shower as Tom Laughlin drives them on their honeymoon! Yes, Tony Perkins got into a shower with a woman twice in 1960.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I myself like the Untouchables but would rather watch Lethal Weapon or Die Hard.

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Well, these things are always a matter of personal taste -- and fun to discuss -- but we all like what we like.

I know this: The Untouchables is my favorite movie of 1987 and Die Hard is my favorite movie of 1988 and though I think that Die Hard is a bigger action epic -- my heart is with the sad heart of The Untouchables, which has a great score and great characters and also has the guts to kill some of the heroes off -- this doesn't happen in Lethal Weapon or Die Hard; note that Lethal Weapon and Die Hard got various sequels but The Untouchables stands alone.

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Also I am in the minority but hate that Sean Connery won for the Untouchables over Denzel Washington in Cry Freedom and Morgan Freeman in Street Smart.

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Well, the Oscars works these things out, doesn't it? Sean Connery wasn't really getting "Oscar parts" for most of his career. Here was his chance to win one, finally -- in the "Supporting" category, but he DOES support newbie Kevin Coster with his Old Star charisma. Denzel would eventually win two Oscars(to date) and Freeman , one(to date.)

It all works out.

Plus: given that Costner lacks star power and DeNiro just "drops in for cameo scenes" as Al Capone, Connery really holds The Untouchables together with his presence and performance.

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7699) 4 years ago

I like Denzel winning for Glory but hate that Morgan Freeman didn't win til Million Dollar baby. I don't consider Sean Connery a great dramatic actor. He is more well known for action and adventure movies.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I like Denzel winning for Glory

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Very close in time to 1987, yes...

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but hate that Morgan Freeman didn't win til Million Dollar baby.

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That's a weird factor of the Oscars. Sometimes it takes FOREVER for the competition to clear for a great actor to win. Al Pacino FINALLY winning for Scent of a Woman(a 'lesser" role in his work) is another example.

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I don't consider Sean Connery a great dramatic actor.

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But he ended up being one of our great movie STARS. In a medium where many leading man were of average or short height(Hoffman, Pacino, even Redford)...Connery was a very tall man, and a very strapping, big man. Formidable. His acting chops as James Bond -- sensual, sadistic, self-amused -- pretty much outclassed all of his successors, none of whom had his unique SIZE.

With "The Untouchables," a middle-aged, bald Connery (usually with moustache or beard to compensate) took on the first of some "father figure" roles. Two years later, Connery would play Indiana Jones ACTUAL father. One year later, Connery, in "The Presidio," a programmer for director Peter Hyams(who made a lot of those, including Outland, also with Connery), Connery would be father figure to Mark Harmon(rather a Kevin Costner wannabee who made his fortune later with NCIS.)

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He is more well known for action and adventure movies.

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Yes. Though he can be found given fine, rough performances in movies like The Hill and The Offense. Connery worked on breaking the Bond mold when he could.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The thing about Connery's win for The Untouchables is this: it has been said that the Oscar goes "to the character, not to the performance." And Jimmy Malone is a great character, given great lines by David Mamet. (SPOILER BELOW.)

Malone by his own admission is "the last good cop in a dirty town"(Chicago), consigned to walking the beat in old age because he won't take graft. The equally "pure" Ness drafts Malone as his "co-leader" and the two men find incorruptible helpers (the FBI accountant played by Charles Martin Smith; the Italian-American sharpshooter played by Andy Garcia) and they go up against corruption so vast and so deep that...it is a given that some of these men will die.

But as Malone says before the film's great horseback ride against Capone's men on open terrain: "Aw, hell, you're gonna die of SOMETHING!"

And eventually, Malone DOES die. Violently and very sadly, but not before living long enough to give Ness valuable information and a dying question "What are you prepared to DO?" As with all such great characters, Malone haunts the final act of The Untouchables even when he isn't there, and when seen one last time in a photograph -- its very moving.

Malone gets other great lines. The speech "They come at you with a knife, you come at them with a gun; they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue. That's the Chicago way." And my personal favorite, after he punches a bad guy in the gut, he asks the other bad guys: "Do you think he feels better? Or WORSE?"

Connery was an over-the-title A list movie star right up to his last one(The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.) He quit voluntarily(like Cary Grant) and refused all new offers(like Cary Grant.) Spielberg said "there are only seven movie stars -- I won't tell you all of them -- but Connery is one." And he must have had SOME acting talent within him to last that long.

You can see it in "The Untouchables."