Now playing at the Zeitgeist Odeon
The culture war, at a theater near you
By Todd Leopold
CNN
 |  Michael Moore walks through Washington with a Marine in "Fahrenheit 9/11." |
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| | ON CNN TV |  "Eye on Entertainment" talks about the weekend's happenings on CNN's "Live Today" between 10 a.m. and noon ET Thursday. |
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(CNN) -- The Germans have a word for it: "zeitgeist," or the "spirit of the age."
Trend-spotters -- particularly annoying pop culture watchers like those of us in the news media -- use the word when something unexpected captures the public fancy in a way that seems symbolic of the times.
Movies don't often capture the zeitgeist. They're put together so long in advance, have so much marketing muscle behind them, that even blockbuster successes can't be said to have become something bigger than they are.
But, occasionally, there are those breakout sleepers. "The Blair Witch Project" was as much about the power of the Internet -- its primary marketing tool -- as it was a shaky-cam, low-budget horror movie. "Thelma and Louise" and "Fatal Attraction" inspired discussions about the battle of the sexes.
"Easy Rider" rode the '60s youth wave to unprecedented success. And "Marty" -- the quiet, "what do you wanna do tonight?" character drama that began as a TV play -- indicated that television had elbowed movies out of the way to become the dominant medium of the times (and became the template for the independent film).
This year has proved a good year for the zeitgeist film -- though, to be fair, both have played their marketing cards shrewdly.
In February, after months of publicity, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" premiered. But the film did better in many ways than even its fans would have hoped. It's now the No. 8 film all-time domestically, with $370 million, and it inspired countless magazine stories and yammering talking heads, wondering what it all meant.
Friday, Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" opens. Like Gibson, Moore knows how to play the press like a violin. But as dissatisfaction with the Bush administration has grown in recent months, and with divisions in the United States having grown deeper, even Moore couldn't know that his film would suddenly find itself getting summer-movie attention. (After all, it's a documentary, and even highly anticipated documentaries don't open on several hundred screens. Just ask Errol Morris or Frederic Wiseman.)
Indeed, both films seem indicative of the depths of the cultural divide in this country. "The Passion of the Christ" went after cultural conservatives in particular (as well as Christians in general); "Fahrenheit 9/11" will appeal to their opposite number. And, even though any paying audience is a good audience to a filmmaker, both films primarily preach to their respective choirs.
What may be most surprising is that both films have pursued success by touching Hollywood's third rail: politics and religion. This isn't exactly out of the corporate executive's marketing book.
Eye on Entertainment walks the line.
Eye-opener
I used the word "documentary" earlier. Nitpickers might disagree -- "documentary," to most people, implies an unbiased eye (though, as Roger Ebert pointed out in a recent column, all documentaries have a point of view).
However, "Fahrenheit 9/11" makes no bones about its biases. Michael Moore says the film is an op/ed piece, and he hopes it leads to Bush being voted out of office.
The film, as one would expect, has received wildly differing reviews. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, the festival's highest prize. Ebert, The New Yorker's David Denby and The New York Times' A.O. Scott have praised it, with some caveats.
On the other hand, iconoclastic political columnist Christopher Hitchens wrote in Slate, "To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental."
And then there are all the political groups that have gathered on one side of the Moore line or the other: right-wing groups such as Move America Forward and Citizens United, left-wing groups such as MoveOn.org.
At this point, with so much attention, it doesn't even matter much if the film is any good. It's become bigger than itself. The question is whether it will quickly grow smaller because of a box office cold shoulder, or whether we'll still be talking about it come November.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" opens Friday.
On screen
Two of the Wayans brothers -- Marlon and Shawn, with another brother, Keenan, directing -- star in "White Chicks," a comedy about two black officers who go undercover as white girls. The film opened Wednesday. (See the review.)"The Notebook" is the big-screen adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks tear-jerker. The cast, anchored by James Garner and Gena Rowlands, is terrific -- judging from early reviews, better than the material. Opens Friday."Two Brothers" stars two tiger cubs who get separated and then, years later, must face off against each other. Guy Pearce ("Memento") is the human star. Opens Friday.Sound waves
"American Idol" runner-up Diana DeGarmo's debut single, "Dreams/Don't Cry Out Loud/I Believe," is due Tuesday. You can shut off your radios now. It's been four years since the last Cure album, but Robert Smith isn't ready to bow out yet. The group's new album, simply titled "The Cure" (Virgin), comes out Tuesday.Paging readers
Watch out what you invent -- it might be used for far different ends. (See Nobel, Alfred.) In the case of Narcis Monturiol, who invented the world's first fully operational steam-powered submarine, he had democracy in mind -- not vehicles of war. His story, "Monturiol's Dream" (Pantheon) by Matthew Stewart, comes out Tuesday.Thisbe Nissen's first novel, "The Good People of New York," earned good reviews. Her new one, "Osprey Island" (Knopf), comes out July 1.Video center
"Van Johnson is right!" "It's not Hedy, it's HEDley." "It's a pleasure to present a laurel, and hardy handshake ..." "I didn't get a harrumph out of you." Oh, I can go on and on. But I'll stop. "Blazing Saddles: The 30th Anniversary Special Edition" comes out Tuesday.
