Every now and then you see a movie advertised as coming to video and you scratch your head wondering why you’ve never heard of it. Nobel Son, which opened December 8 and is available on DVD today, is just such a case. The film stars Alan Rickman, Bryan Greenberg, Eliza Dushku, Shawn Hatosy, Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman, Ted Danson and Danny Devito. Pretty nifty cast.

Now, check out the official synopsis: On the eve of Barkley Michaelson’s father receiving the Nobel Prize, Barkley is kidnapped and the requested ransom is the $2,000,000 in Nobel Prize money. When his father refuses to pay it starts a venomous tale of familial dysfunction, lust, betrayal and ultimately revenge.

Sounds like it should be a pretty cool thriller. And yet. And yet the film lasted a mere three weeks during the holiday season and earned a meager $540,382 at the box office. As we’ve discussed previously, the timing for serious dramas was off this holiday season, a factor no one could anticipate or program around. Instead, films opened and the studios hoped for the best.

This film probably deserved a better audience, but it also deserved a sharper script. Randall Miller and his wife Jody Savin co-wrote the script which Miller directed and the story has flash-forwards and flashbacks, and weaves one scheme after another. However, by the time you get to the last scene, you’ve seen everyone scheme, everyone outsmart the next guy and it got too convoluted and clever for its own good.

One of the film’s failings has to be that they don’t round out any of the characters. You have the good son, the son-of-a-bitch father, the pretty and smart wife, the psycho girl, the dogged detective and little else. Admittedly, there are a few surprising character turns by the end, but there’s little to set these up and some feel tacked on or coming from left field. Instead, we needed to really care about one or two of the characters and keep things from being twisty and turny for its own sake.

A psychological thriller needs clear patches so the twists come as a surprise. Here, it’s all surprise and you wonder. Danny Devito’s OCD tenant in the home owned by Rickman and Steenburgen is a perfect example. He shows up, helps move the story along then his arc is dramatically closed but you wonder why he’s there at all. Similarly, Ted Danson plays Rickman’s Dean and has absolutely nothing to do in the film. Rickman plays a wonderful pompous ass but you have no clue why he’s married to Steenburgen, who is underutilized. Dushku plays a variation on her usual character and plays nicely off both Hatosy and Greenberg.

There’s a great story here, one that could have made for a real enjoyable experience but the writer didn’t service the director and the director didn’t visually add anything to help the writer. Being the same person, Miller failed his own film.

The movie comes with a bare bones assortment of features including three deleted scenes, one of which is an alternate ending that doesn’t change much. The Making Of featurette is lackluster and self-congratulatory.

Yes, it’s that time of year again. We probably won’t be doing much live posting today, but check in on the ComicMix Twitter Feed and see what we’re posting there. Feel free to come up and bug me, I’ll be the really tall guy in the ComicMix shirt.

To remind everybody of the details:

The
Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art is proud to announce MoCCA Festival
2009 will be held June 6th & 7th at the 69th Regiment Armory at
Lexington Avenue and 25th Street in New York City.
The Village
Voice calls the MoCCA Festival “”the best small-press nexus
(anywhere!)” Now BIGGER than ever! An incredible weekend of comic and
cartoon art exhibitors, panels, lectures, sketches, autographs, and
more! Thousands come every summer to meet and purchase works from some
of the world’s best cartoonists, animators, and graphic novelists.

Where?
69th Regiment Armory; 68 Lexington Avenue, between 25th and 26th Streets

When?
June 6th and 7th, 11am-6pm

Cost?
$10 per day, $15 per weekend; MoCCA Members: $10 per weekend

More information available here.

And yes, I’ll be around at some of the other gatherings tonight, most probably doing the CBLDF Karaoke thingie. But if you’re a music lover, you might want to skip my singing and instead go to David Mazuchelli’s opening reception at MoCCA from 7-9 tonight:

In celebration of the release of his highly-anticipated book, Asterios Polyp,
The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art is pleased to present David
Mazzucchelli’s first retrospective exhibition in the U.S.
Mazzucchelli’s career encompasses early groundbreaking work in Daredevil and Batman: Year One; idiosyncratic short stories in his self-published anthology, Rubber Blanket, and elsewhere; the graphic novel adaptation of City of Glass;
and his new graphic novel. For over 25 years, Mazzucchelli has
distinguished himself with articulate storytelling and emotive drawings
in service to comics in a variety of genres. Sounds and Pauses: The Comics of David Mazzucchelli
presents over 80 original comic pages, drawings, prepatory sketches and
covers from the artist’s archives, allowing an invaluable look at
Mazzucchelli’s artistic journey.

The exhibition is curated by Dan Nadel.

Supprt for MoCCA and Sounds and Pauses: The Comics of David Mazzucchelli comes from Pantheon Books, Picturebox, the Will and Ann Eisner Foundation, and the members of MoCCA.