Bad Teacher

Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.Maybe a better title would be Socially Inappropriate Teacher. Or maybe Craven Educator with the Potential to Change. Sure, Cameron Diaz's dumped debutante Elizabeth Halsey wants nothing more than to marry a rich man and live spectacularly off his money. It's what every hot chick with a smokin' bod deserves, right? Of course, the story mandates that her nuptial ruse be uncovered, requiring her to return to the one place she hates more than anything else -- the classroom. Often too drunk and detached to teach and purposefully shunning her needy students, she lets in-class movies like Stand and Deliver and Lean on Me do the heavy educational lifting. How she ever became an instructor in the first place remains a solid mystery.

In order to save herself from this dire, dead-end life, she plots a means of making $10K to get a man-entrapping boob job while eyeing the supposedly wealthy do-gooder sub Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake). All that stands in her way is an overachieving perky pariah coworker named Amy Squirrell (Lucy Punch), a dolphin-obsessed dullard principal (John Michael Higgins), and a friendly PE coach (Jason Segel) who can't figure out why Elizabeth won't give him the time of day. Oh yeah, and a group of nameless kids with the standard, stereotypical middle school maladies.

Thus the rest of director Jake Kasdan's genial if spotty comedy is a series of set-ups, get-rich-quick plot devices interspersed with crude sexual references, and the occasional bow to the realities of teaching the pre-teen. The script, by Lee Eisenberg and Greg Stupnitsky, is more Year One than The Office (projects both men are responsible for), uneven in tone and not quite capable of maintaining a firm film point of view. This is a movie that wants to be rude, raunchy, and ridiculous, yet can only come up with F-bombs, genitalia jokes, and the occasional pot reference. We want to see Elizabeth rebel against all the faculty stiffs she's surrounded by, to take these bureaucratic backstabbers down a few dozen notches.

But Bad Teacher doesn't have the shameless cojones to go for it. Instead, it constantly pulls back. It's almost as if the filmmakers felt they would run into trouble with some whimpering watchdog group -- the MPAA, the PTA, any number of pro-PC irritants -- and prematurely hedged their bets. Sure, it's okay for Diaz (in a very good performance) to discuss oral sex and personal perversions, just as long as no children are actually insinuated or endangered. You can talk roughly to them, just don't infer anything beyond the bad words. For a movie that promises to corrupt anything that comes in its path, to take no prisoners and metaphysically urinate all over propriety, it's pretty sedate. There's no sense of anarchy, no manic desire to truly push the envelope of acceptability.

For the stars, however, it's smooth scatological sailing. Diaz is indeed in her element here, radiating a kind of radical antisocialism that should earn her a new league of loyal "students." For his part, former fling Timberlake plays against type and does so rather well. As the villainess, Punch is perfect. Her sunny/sinister edge adds greatly to her often aggravating dialogue, and Segel shines every time he's onscreen, often coming across as the real comedic voice of this effort. For his part, Kasdan doesn't get in anyone's way. He finds a means of stringing together the often incompatible vignettes in a way that has us rooting for Elizabeth's happiness and Amy's comeuppance.

While never quite as funny as it should be, and constantly missing obvious opportunities, Bad Teacher is still a jolly, joke-filled escape. Indeed, perhaps calling it Inconsistently Witty Professor would have been more suitable.

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Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

Conan O'Brien can't stop? OK, let's go with it.

So, uh, can't stop what?

Being funny? We already knew that, given that the redheaded wonder rebounded in high-style following his skeevy oust from The Tonight Show in the fall of 2009, hitting the road with a traveling variety show that came to be called the "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television" Tour. Filmmaker Rodman Flender was there the whole way, camera in hand, and the footage he captured has now been edited into a feature documentary about the tour called (yep) Conan O'Brien Can't Stop.

You've got to give Flender credit for his timing; he seems to have dropped out of the sky, camera in hand, right after O'Brien's NBC exodus, which is summarized in an amusing, albeit rather brief, animated opening segment. The images he gets in the wake of the NBC fiasco, following through to the end of the tour, are raw, to say the least. From the minute we meet him, Conan is already chomping at the bit, scoping out new network homes ("I'm not going to TBS!" he snits at one point) and fretting over how he can best reach the audience he's at risk of losing without the help of TV airtime. His tenacity is a central point for the movie, but this turns out to be merely the tip of the iceberg.

So what then, he can't stop performing?

Sure seems like it. Conan turns out to be something of a closet perfectionist, like the Michael Jackson of late-night television. When something goes right, his team is showered with glowing praise. When it goes wrong, Conan's body tenses, his eyes grow cold, and he starts firing off scathing barbs, rat-a-tat-tat, like gunfire, to voice his displeasure.

Sometimes (most times, really), it's all in the name of fun, hence the Eddie Murphy suit. Flender frames Conan as not only a funny guy, but a funny guy who understands the power of presentation and performance. Not only that, but he's incredibly good at creating bits out of thin air. In the film's funniest moment, Conan launches into a comedic mauling of 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer, who has made the mistake of showing his face backstage, and the entire room lights up as his zingers hit home. Suddenly, before we know it, a spontaneous performance -- and a good one, at that -- has grown out of what was supposed to be a quiet moment.

The impetus for this Ironman-level schedule is, we're led to believe, the result of some kind of people-pleasing compulsion Conan draws/suffers from, the notion of which haunts the movie but is never explored deeply enough to make our hero ever seem like anything other than a perky lunatic. "I don't know what it would be like to stop," O'Brien intones early on in the film, letting that final word hang in the air like an unpleasant aftertaste.

So, basically, he doesn't. Secret shows are added, bonus performances are put together on the spot, and more often than not Conan drags himself out for an extra meet-and-greet or autograph session despite his growing weariness. And make no mistake, he is weary, as he proclaims loudly, and often, to anyone with a pair of ears within his blast radius.

So maybe he can't stop complaining, then?

Big time, and herein lies the problem. Those who tuned into the final Tonight Shows were treated to a surprising portrait of grace under fire, capped off with a wonderful farewell monologue and a sweet little performance with The White Stripes. In those last few hours of television, O'Brien seemed like a straight-backed guy who refused, for all life was throwing at him, to wallow in self-pity.

From the minute we meet him in Can't Stop, however, he's nowhere close to that guy. It's tough not to sympathize with someone who's been so thoroughly screwed over as O'Brien was, but man, does he whine. Admittedly, O'Brien shows a certain dignity in his disgrace while he first puts the tour together; Flender shoots him as the underdog scraping by on life's little victories, and the movie rides high on the wins he scrapes together. The lead-up to Conan's first show in the middle of nowhere, and the progression from trepidation to elation that goes with it, is perfectly handled.

Then the floodgates open as the shows start piling on, and the movie runs in circles: every other scene becomes a soliloquy about how burned out Conan is getting and how he doesn't want to do any more meet-and-greets and doesn't anybody understand what he's going through here? It's here that the movie becomes kind of a distant, if vaguely compelling, character study of a man at the mercy of his own compulsions. You want Conan to be happy, but more than anything you want someone to slap him across the face and tell him to do his job.

It's unclear, at times, whether this hectic schedule is at the insistence of Conan's handlers or the man himself, but focusing less on Conan's need to push himself to such a brink than on his reaction is a disservice to both the man and his story. Conan O'Brien Can't Stop is more observation than investigation; we get the surface account of Conan's odyssey but nothing on his inner journey, as it were. After a while, you get the sense that Flender isn't trying to so much tell O'Brien's story as validate his suffering, and the movie, while amusing, fails to connect.

So, back to the big question: why can't Conan O'Brien stop? That's the problem. Six months following him, and Flender can't give us an answer. Conan makes an interesting character subject, but Flender does nothing with what he's given except keep filming. All we're left with is a feel-good story that's full of questions, which is too bad. If Flender had just pushed Conan to give a deeper answer, there's a good chance the guy wouldn't stop talking, either.

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Passione

In 2007, actor John Turturro self-released his directorial debut Romance & Cigarettes, a workingman's jukebox musical, featuring a star-studded cast of adulterous and eclectic outer-borough New Yorkers. In that film, ironworkers, hairdressers, and one redheaded buxom bimbette self-reflexively took leave from their hardscrabble lives and burst into song and dance, lip-syncing pop song and Motown revelry.

One of the most exotically enticing musicals in recent memory, Turturro's debut serves as a welcome gateway for his sumptuous sophomore effort, Passione, a foreign (and equally exotic) travelogue musical of sorts that forgoes narrative in favor of cultural and historical excavation.

Playing eloquent host and tour guide behind as well as in front of the camera, Turturro embarks on a foot-walking journey through the cobbled streets, seaside vistas, and Gothic cathedrals of Naples (pronounced Napoli) and its indigenous musicianship -- a hybrid of world cultures nearly a millennium in the making.

Passione thrives as its music oozes with variety: celebratory, pulse-pounding dance numbers, star-crossed ballads, divine hymns, and little ditties about Neapolitan delicacies. It's vaudevillian documentary, and the Italian-American Turturro proves to be an inviting if mercurial host, as if his racist pizza-making, Sicilian-doting character from Do the Right Thing wised up, moved beyond Sinatra worship, and got hip to a flavor of internationalism.

As a director, Turturro capably justifies Naples as a significant musical hotbed on par with the globe's most resounding locales. He blends interviews with professional Neapolitan artists (in performance) and with resident musicologists. But he eschews long, drawn-out history lessons about the city. Instead, he lets the music sing for itself.

Infusing the concert film -- if you can call it that -- with incomparable landscapes, Turturro jumps back and forth between solo soundstage-set ballads and literal renderings of story songs; some provide a ham-fisted wink to the audience, others are more expressionistic. Naples is alive, sprawling, and vividly depicted; the throngs of festivalgoers always seem to be in motion.

As a movie, Passione may be experimental and a tad languorous. Ultimately though, it challenges and engages us to find the familiar in the Neapolitan sounds it presents, and the voices who project Italian verse -- only a handful of songs are subtitled -- reveal a universal language that speaks beyond rhetoric and into the soul.

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Hey, DC! Here's How You Can Bounce Back From Green Lantern

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Trailers & Video Coming to Theaters In Theaters New on DVD Trailers by Genre Trailers by Decade Nadel on Comic Book Movies Hey, DC! Here's How You Can Bounce Back From Green Lantern Posted by Nick Nadel on Jun 21 2011 Nick Nadel Nick Nadel is a comedy writer and blogger living in Brooklyn, NY full bio of Nick Nadel Tweet With Green Lantern currently underperforming at the box office (not to mention receiving a serious drubbing from critics), DC/Warner Bros. find themselves at a bit of a crossroads. The Ryan Reynolds superhero epic was meant to be DC's Iron Man -- the film that proves that they have characters beyond Superman and Batman who can carry their own blockbuster franchises. While a Green Lantern sequel is still likely, fans are understandably concerned about DC's attempts to keep up with Marvel. If Green Lantern, Sinestro, Tomar-Re, and the rest are the first wave of second-tier DC heroes hitting the big screen, the comic book giant needs to make a few changes. Here are some tips for how DC can recover from Green Lantern using his power ring to make a toy racetrack.

Use Superman to introduce new characters
Why did Thor, a movie with a similarly dense comic book mythology, perform better at the box office than Green Lantern? Part of the reason was that audiences have been primed for some sweet Asgardian action ever since Agent Coulson discovered Thor's hammer back in Iron Man 2. Marvel was smart to use the highly successful Iron Man films as a launching pad for their lesser-known characters, and DC would be wise to adopt a similar formula. While a character like, say, The Flash would be out of place in Gotham City, the upcoming Superman reboot is the perfect place to start building an onscreen DC universe. Green Lantern's Amanda Waller, who works for the S.H.I.E.L.D.-like agency Checkmate in the comics, could serve the same connective role as Agent Coulson does in the Marvel movies. (And more Angela Bassett is always a good thing.)

Get a Wonder Woman movie in theaters
Many have suggested that Green Lantern's failure is due to the fact that the average moviegoer has never heard of Oa, Sinestro, and the rest. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman is one of the few untapped icons in the DC Comics stable. Marvel spun Spider-Man, X-Men, and Iron Man into profitable franchises before even attempting Thor or The Avengers. Instead of focusing on second-tier characters like Green Lantern (and yet another Superman movie) DC/Warner Bros. should get back to developing a movie for one of their most well-known superheroes.  It's more than a little absurd that Punisher has received three movies while Wonder Woman sits on the sidelines. 

Enlist edgy directors
With the exception of Christopher Nolan, Warner Bros. hasn't exactly been thinking outside the box when it comes to directors for their comic book flicks. (The upcoming Superman reboot will be Zack Snyder's fifth film in a row with the studio.) And while Green Lantern helmer Martin Campbell had a hit with Casino Royale, he's a hit-and-miss studio guy whose filmography is workmanlike at best. Meanwhile, Marvel generally takes risks when it comes to their behind-the-scenes talent, whether it's letting Jon Favreau inject comedic edge into Iron Man or enlisting Kenneth Branagh to bring Shakespearean grandeur to Thor. And what other studio would give Joss Whedon, a brilliant TV mind with only one big screen directing credit under his belt, the keys to a huge franchise like The Avengers? Perhaps it's time Warner Bros. took a gamble on an up-and-comer. After all, the smartest move the studio ever made was to hand the Batman franchise to the guy behind Memento.

Swap out Hal Jordan for John Stewart in the Green Lantern sequel
Rumor had it that unknown actor Nick Jones, Jr., was going to cameo as John Stewart (no relation to the Daily Show host), an African-American architect and Marine who eventually takes over as the Green Lantern. But from what we saw, Stewart was M.I.A. (Let us know if you spotted him, sharp-eyed readers!) Stewart's Lantern is a fan favorite for his role on the Justice League cartoon and in multiple Green Lantern comics. In fact, one could argue that his popularity in toys, comics, and cartoons has made him the most well-known Lantern of the past decade. Since Hal Jordan failed to connect with audiences, perhaps Warner Bros. should consider a sequel where John Stewart wields the ring. Or, failing that, put Blake Lively in a ridiculous skimpy purple costume for a Star Sapphire spin-off.   Also check out... Who Should Direct the Superman Reboot? Let's Check Out the Contenders Hollywood, Adapt These Comics NowVenom Is Spider-Man's First Spin-Off. Who's Next? Comments () Recommend (0) Green Lantern\"> Green Lantern\"> Green Lantern\"> Green Lantern\"> Green Lantern\"> Green Lantern\"> See more in: blake lively blake lively star sapphire dc comics dc comics movie plans green lantern green lantern box office ryan reynolds Newest Oldest Most Replies Most Liked
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New on DVD - June 21, 2011 - The Adjustment Bureau and Unknown

Chris Barsanti has been a Filmcritic reviewer since 2002. So there.Losing control of their lives: In The Adjustment Bureau, a rising politician discovers that supernatural beings are very interested in him not falling in love with a particular woman, while in Unknown, a traveling doctor finds out that everything he thought was true about his life might be false; these and a decent selection of other films from comedy (Cedar Rapids) to action (The Eagle) and classic noir (Kiss Me Deadly) coming this week to Blu-ray and DVD.

The Adjustment Bureau

In this adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story, Matt Damon plays a politician whose rise to power is nearly derailed by, first, an unexpected romance with Emily Blunt and, second, by some mysterious men in hats with nearly God-like abilities to warp and control reality. Many multi-dimensional chases ensue. Our critic called it "a quasi-theological chase flick that nearly transforms into a full-blown romance" and "a brisk and unexpectedly winning concoction that lies somewhere between Wings of Desire and a Christopher Nolan puzzler."

Unknown

Mysteries abound in rainy Berlin -- Liam Neeson stars as a traveling American who, after a bad car accident, discovers that his life has been wiped clean; somebody else is impersonating him and his wife no longer knows who he is. Does he get mad or get even? Given that it's Neeson, there's a lot of both. We were impressed both with the film's concept and with its ability to pull off its more out-there aspects, calling it "taut and tidy, a one-two punch we don't always get from today's thrill rides."

Kiss Me Deadly

In Robert Aldrich's bizarre 1955 noir, Ralph Meeker plays Mickey Spillane gumshoe Mike Hammer, who nearly gets killed by some thugs after picking up a scared beauty on a deserted road. So he tries to get to the bottom of things, and gets even in the meantime. The results ain't pretty. Our critic called this curiously apocalyptic film a "cubist noir of the atomic age." Now available in a sparkling new edition from the Criterion Collection.

Cedar Rapids

On The Office, Ed Helms plays a mild-mannered preppie paper salesman who never gets the girl. In this Miguel Arteta (Youth in Revolt) comedy about a raunchy convention at a small Iowa hotel, Helms plays a mild-mannered small-town insurance salesman who (sort of) gets the girl. Our writer termed the mix of performances here (John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, The Wire's Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) "just right," calling it the year's "first thoroughly enjoyable comedy."

Elektra Luxx

Carla Gugino is the Luxx of the title, a former porn star who quit the business after getting pregnant with a rock star who up and died on her. When Luxx finds out some secrets about her old flame, she is also tailed by a curious private detective (Timothy Olyphant) and has her film career discussed at length online by an overenthusiastic fan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Although little of it makes much sense, our critic liked this Pedro Almodovar-derived "candy-colored mixture of farce, melodrama, and a hint of noir."

The Eagle

Set in 120 AD, this Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) adventure has Channing Tatum as a dedicated Roman legionnaire who ventures into the unconquered northern wilderness of England to retrieve his legion's lost standard, with the help of a British slave (Jamie Bell). We thought there were some shaky moments throughout - "something akin to Rapa Nui with touches of Gladiator and Centurion thrown in for befuddled measure" -- but that ultimately it was "pure action and adventure."

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules

Did you see the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid? Do you know a child who made you take them? Are they going to make you see the sequel? Our critic advises not to expect anything too different from the first outing, as the sequel (in which our hero endures more problems with his big brother and classmates) is composed of "slight slapstick, comic cliches, and enough sullen after-school special messages to make even the most misguided child straighten up and fly right."

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Green Lantern

Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.For a movie that relies so heavily on energy to form its narrative, Green Lantern lacks any real oomph of its own. It's an inert origin story, built out of bits and pieces of comic book mythology that most likely played a lot better on four fixed panels. From the unusual -- and often counterproductive -- casting choices to the lack of vision on the part of director Martin Campbell, this is the kind of near calamity that DC fans have long feared. While Marvel manages to reinvent its label as a superior setting for serious filmmakers and equally adept actors, their competitor continues to live off Christopher Nolan and his brilliant Batman films hoping to somehow hit cinematic paydirt again. So far, they're failing.

Hal Jordan (a blank Ryan Reynolds) is a hot shot pilot working for aero-tech concern Ferris Aircraft. Along with gal pal -- and equally adept flyer -- Carol (Blake Lively), our hero plays fast and loose with the rules. Haunted by the death of his father, Hal puts on an air of fearlessness. In truth, he's tentative about his life and its prospects. All of that changes when he is chose by the Green Lantern Corps to take the place of dying alien warrior Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison). His job? Protect the universe.

Hal is the first earthling ever chosen by the bright emerald light of will, and he is soon whisked to the Lantern planet of Oa to discover his new destiny. There, he meets lead Lantern Sinestro (Mark Strong) as well as mentor and guide Tomar-re (Geoffrey Rush). Back on Earth, the doctor son (Peter Sarsgaard) of a well-placed politician (Tim Robbins) becomes infected with the fear essence of the deadly immortal Parallax and starts to change. Soon, he is a formidable freak, hoping to take down Hal and help his host destroy our galaxy.

At first, Green Lantern looks like it's going to work. We witness the release of Parallax, watch as Abin Sur battles the "beast" and then escapes. During these initial moments, the movie has a zip and vitality that will soon more or less disappear. Then we are introduced to Reynolds's cypher of a center and the film really starts to fall apart. It's impossible to know if putting someone else in the bright green garb of the Lantern would have made that big of a difference. Campbell, who made his reputation with two James Bonds films (GoldenEye and Casino Royale) forgets all of his finesse. Instead, it's one clunky scene after another, each establishing a necessary piece of exposition without adding one ounce of awe or wonder to the mix. In the end, it's all practiced and perfunctory, not the best combination for a future franchise in the making.

If one were to pinpoint where things go horribly askew, it would have to be when Hal makes his first public appearance as Green Lantern. It's at a party for Ferris Aircraft, and he's been invited because...well, if he's not there, he can't save the day, right? Anyway, Sarsgaard's demented scientist, now capable of similarly styled telekinesis, causes a helicopter to crash...and how does Hal save the day? Why, by turning the mayhem into a CG version of Hot Wheels -- track and all. Yes indeed, when evil rears its ugly, malformed head, our hero relies on silly computer generated kiddie junk to divide and conquer. From the uniformly poor performances (Lively looks lost, while Strong is simply waiting for the sequel) to the undeniable feeling of being witness to something struggling to find a purpose, Green Lantern is just lame. Fans may forgive his lack of spark. Everyone else will want to avoid its lackluster light.

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The Humdrum Summer and Why It's Okay

John Scalzi is an award-winning science fiction writer.Here's an interesting business-related letter I got earlier this week:

Is it just me, or does it seem like movies aren't making as much money as they used to? The big summer movies so far don't seem to be having as big opening weekends as I remember them having before.

Indeed, the big summer movies, including those of a science-fiction or fantasy nature, are down a bit from previous years, at least domestically -- although "down" is something of relative term. For example, the latest Pirates of the Caribbean installment is likely to be the least successful of that series at the domestic box office. But it had a $90 million opening weekend (the 22nd best of all time), it's made over $200 million so far, and it will likely hit $250 million here at home before it wanders out of the theaters. We should all underperform so well.

Likewise, Thor has not scaled the financial heights this year that Iron Man did a few summers ago, but it'll end up in the neighborhood of $180 million domestically -- a sum generally considered to be in hit territory. Ask most filmmakers if they would like to have produced a movie that makes $180 million, and they'll say, "Oh, yes, please." And they would be right to do so.

Relative or not, however, the box-office numbers don't hit the heights they have before. What's the cause? I have a few thoughts on the matter, naturally.

1. Sequel blahs: Outside of science fiction and fantasy, sequels are chugging along fine -- note the performances of both The Hangover Part II and Fast Five -- but within these genres things are sort of so-so, with the aforementioned Pirates film and also Kung Fu Panda 2 chugging along fine but not spectacularly. I personally suspect that the upcoming Transformers pic will underperform relative to the previous movies in the series. In the cases of Pirates and Transformers, at least, part of that has to do with the fact that these films are following installments that weren't actually very good; the last Pirates film was confusing and had to follow through on what felt like several dozen story lines, while the last Transformers film was just flat-out stupid.

But I think it's also because there's a general feeling from audiences that they've seen everything these series have to offer. They're are at the point where familiarity breeds -- if not contempt -- at least a certain lack of urgency, which translates into "It's okay for me to miss it in the theater." The one movie I think may beat this phenomenon this summer is the final Harry Potter film because it is the last in the series, which will go out with a bang, making it worth seeing on the big screen (but not necessarily in 3-D, which I will get to).

2. Comic-book-rebuilding year: With the exception of X-Men: First Class (which has suffered some of the sequel blahs noted above), most of the comic-book series currently in production are in an off year. Batman and Iron Man are nowhere to be seen, and Spider-Man's reboot isn't quite ready yet. So what we have is a year where the studios are trying to launch new heroes, in an era when the superhero segment of the industry is already pretty saturated. It's not impossible, but it's more work than it was before, and both DC and Marvel have already run through their A-list characters and are working to get you excited about a lower tier of heroes. (Hey, my favorite DC character is Green Arrow, so don't look at me like that.) The studios aren't stupid, and they know that this year is a rebuilding year. That is to say, if they give these new characters a decent launch, then you'll be excited for -- and pay even more money to go see -- the sequel a couple of years down the line.

This is a long process for them, in other words, and this year is just the first step -- particularly for the folks at Marvel, who are planning to jam all their heroes into a single Avengers film that they clearly expect to vacuum up all the money in the known universe.

3. 3-D burnout: I went over this a couple of weeks ago, so there's no reason to go over it again in detail, but it's still a factor. Audiences are more discriminating about what films they really want to see in 3-D, and the answer seems to be "Not too many of them."

But if you're planning to feel bad for the movie studios about their relatively modest movie returns this summer, don't: nearly all the big summer films so far this year are doing better in the international box office than they are here, at home. (In the case of the new Pirates, it's the most financially successful of the series, internationally speaking.) So the studios are fine. The real lesson of the summer so far is that the domestic box office is even less a driver of a studio's bottom line than it was before.

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