Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 3, 1995 TAG: 9505040006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN J. O'CONNOR N.Y. TIMES NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Then along came television, which in addition to gobbling up Hollywood movies to flesh out skimpy schedules, began around 1969 to produce its own made-for-TV movies. These were initially low-budget affairs that gave ``real'' movie critics irresistible opportunities for sneering. The dividing line was clear. For a while.
Today it's one big blur. Made-for-TV movies often hit big-time-budget levels and wind up being released theatrically around the world. Films made for television abroad are released theatrically here, a practice that began in earnest with England's ``My Beautiful Laundrette,'' a Hanif Kureishi story directed by Stephen Frears and starring a promising unknown named Daniel Day-Lewis.
The practice continues this year with the BBC's miniseries version of Kureishi's ``Buddha of Suburbia.''
In addition, there are now made-for-cable movies. The business is controlled by powerful market forces that, especially in the area of pay-cable ``premium'' channels, have made significant changes in the traditional flow of the Hollywood pipeline.
Video stores are also major players in this new configuration. One result: the movie you are watching on Home Box Office may not have been made for cable and may not ever have been available at your neighborhood movie theater.
Consider ``Frank and Jesse,'' which recently made its bow on HBO. Starring Rob Lowe as Jesse James and Bill Paxton as his brother Frank, this ``Robert Boris film'' - he wrote and directed it - depicts the legendary post-Civil War outlaws as American heroes, taking from the rich to give to the downtrodden.
The villain of the piece is Allan Pinkerton (William Atherton), the detective-agency boss in the employ of nasty railroad barons determined to crush the brothers.
Lowe is a touch too naturally soft around the edges to be convincing as the hard-as-railroad-spikes (but sensitive) Jesse. And the nearly two-hour film could have been shortened without undue effort. But if you're a violence buff, there are gruesome shootouts to spare.
How does ``Frank and Jesse'' find itself in this unusual distribution process, which will eventually extend to cassettes in video stores?
Someone obviously decided, perhaps in the wake of Kevin Costner's costly flop ``Wyatt Earp,'' that ``Frank and Jesse'' would not be worth the cost of an expensive promotional campaign for theatrical release.
Enter HBO, which licenses upwards of 1,000 films a year for cable. With close ties to the film industry, HBO - through its vice presidents Neil Brown and Camilla Carpenter - keeps tabs on productions that, given the ever-more-entrenched blockbuster mentality of the theatrical-release business, might end up withering on a shelf.
Although HBO produces its own ``event'' movies, like ``Barbarians at the Gate'' and the coming ``Indictment,'' it pursues these spurned Hollywood movies as a low-risk way to help both the film and HBO itself.
At first, video stores feared that their revenues would be cannibalized. But distributors are now discovering that the HBO imprimatur can be an asset. So, focusing on action, suspense and thriller movies, HBO pursues this new ``world premiere'' tactic, hoping to offer at least one such production each month. ``Subscribers love them,'' the vice presidents insist.
The record so far is wildly uneven. Something called ``The Dangerous,'' with an odd-lot cast that included John Savage, Eliott Gould and Joel Grey, obviously was snapped up because it also features Paula Barbieri, who manages to display all of her talents in bikini underwear. Ms. Barbieri would be wise to squeeze as much as she can out of her O.J. Simpson connection, however tenuous.
On the other hand, there was ``The Last Seduction,'' in which Linda Fiorentino's sizzling portrait of a murderous supervixen generated so much buzz that the film was later released in movie houses. Coming up soon: ``Above Suspicion,'' with Christopher Reeve and Joe Mantegna.
In short, patterns of movie distribution are dramatically changed. What are movie reviewers to do? What are television reviewers to do? Stay tuned for some heavy, and perhaps shameless, power jockeying.
by CNB