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CNN Live Today

Movie Season on Track to Break Record

Aired May 27, 2002 - 14:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: This summer's movie season is on a track to break last year's $3 billion revenue record right here in the United States. And film reviewer Paul Clinton is a correspondent for cnn.com and CNN radio. And he's in our L.A. bureau on this holiday.

Hi, Paul.

PAUL CLINTON, FILM CORRESPONDENT, CNN.COM, CNN RADIO: Hi, how are you, Carol?

LIN: Well, you have a fresh audience with me, because I just got back from a month-long assignment in Israel, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to be looking at in the theaters. What is causing the most excitement this weekend?

CLINTON (singing): Da da, da da da da da.

(normal voice): "Star Wars," of course. It's $64 million and it's the No. 1 film in the country right now. People are still going to it. They're into repeat viewing now. People are going again and again and again, the hard core "Star Wars" fans.

No. 2, of course, is "Spider-Man," but it's only 36 million. There's a big change between No. 1 and No. 2. So then following that, you have "Insomnia," with Robin Williams and Al Pacino and Hillary Swank. You've got three Oscar winners. It's a very big film, and it has got $24 million at the box office in the four-day Memorial Day weekend.

And that is followed by "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron," which is from Dreamworks. It's animation -- it's a combination of 3D, 2D and hand-drawn characters against a CG background. It wants to be "The Lion King" and it gets there, almost. But nothing ever is going to be "The Lion King," probably. But the Brian Adams songs are wonderful and it's a good family film. It's a good film for everybody.

And No. 5 is "Enough," with Jennifer Lopez. And all can say about "Enough" is, within five minutes you'll have had enough and you just want out of there.

LIN: Really?

CLINTON: Jennifer Lopez is very good actress. And she is -- can do anything. I really admire and respect her. But she does not pick movies well. The only thing she's done really that I liked was "Out of Sight."

This was just predictable. It's inane, it's stupid. You just want the thing to end. You know she's going to kill Billy Campbell, so it's just terrible. Let me out of here.

LIN: Oh, no. Did you just tell us something we weren't supposed to know?

CLINTON: Oh, please. It's awful!

(LAUGHTER)

LIN: Just drive them away, Paul. Nobody go see it. You already know how it ends.

Well, wait a second. Let me talk to you about "Insomnia." Remember Christopher Nolan from his funky film, "Memento." And I don't know, if folks didn't see it out there, it's really bizarre. I mean, towards the end of it, I wondered if I even knew what the story was at all. But it was really artfully done.

Is "Insomnia" a little more, I don't now, mainstream? A little more commercial than "Memento"?

CLINTON: Well, it's got a linear plot line, Carol. It's not a movie going backwards, which is what the theme was with "Memento." "Memento," you really need to see three or four times to even begin to figure it out. This is more of a traditional story. And you've got a beginning, a middle and an end.

And the acting is superb in this. It's really very good. And Robin Williams plays a bad guy. And he plays a very good bad guy. And it's a plot within a plot. You know, Christopher Nolan is convoluted. He likes, you know, thick plot situations. And this has all that.

It's not -- there's a couple story lines going. There's a couple twists that happen. He's a very complex gifted filmmaker. I think we're going to see a lot of him.

LIN: You mentioned Jeffrey Katzenberg's "Spirit." It's really cool seeing the animation films come up, also, with these big suspense films because it's something for everyone in the family. But for Katzenberg, this really kind of highlights -- he's got this thing about horses, right?

CLINTON: Yes, he does.

LIN: I don't really want to know, but...

CLINTON: I don't know whether we want to go there or not. No, he does like horses. He also likes lions. He was behind "Lion King" when he was over at Disney. I mean, animation is very, very important to Jeff Katzenberg because he has a lot to prove in that area. Because he really put Disney back on the map in animation in the '80s.

And then he left that company, under the not necessarily the nicest of circumstances -- there was a feud between him and Michael Eisner. He partnered with David Geffen and Spielberg to make Dreamworks. And he's Mr. Animation. He's got a lot to prove in that area. And "Spirit" is pretty good.

LIN: I hope that he does. Five years in the making. Thank you very much. Paul Clinton. Happy holidays to you.

CLINTON: Happy holidays to you.

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