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May 01, 2007
Fox Searchlight Is the New Miramax
Set your alarms for yet another sleeper from Fox Searchlight: the lightly amazing May 18 release "Once" (above right), a no-frills neo-musical for the YouTube generation with a sweet and simple story about an Irish street musician (Glen Hansard of the Frames) and the Czech girl (Marketa Irglova) he falls for after she stops to listen. She's a talented songwriter too. They largely leave their thoughts about each other for their ballads -- which may have been written for other people.
Miramax brought home the Oscar for Helen Mirren, but their campaign for "Venus," a bittersweet dramedy about aging with inspired performances and wickedly astute writing, was a bust, starting with the Tales from the Crypt poster (above left) that attracted theatergoers like formaldehyde-flavored popcorn.
Forest Whitaker won Best Actor instead in Searchlight's "The Last King of Scotland," because it's just that easy to sell people on a movie about a Ugandan slaughterer.
Since "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Sideways," Searchlight has scored again and again--"Little Miss Sunshine," "Notes on a Scandal"--and "Once" is their kind of item, a movie that badly needs word of mouth to grow but cost about $1.72 and will be generating rich returns for many years.
Posted by Kyle Smith on May 1, 2007 10:56 AM
