• Skype sponsored a panel at Cannes today called “Buzz Builders,” and it featured a number of Friends of SpoutBlog: Alison Willmore, Michael Jones, Eugene Hernandez and, via the sponsor’s internet based calling system, David Poland. Poland used the panel to announce that he’ll “be very surprised” if “The Hollywood Reporter is still [around] three years from now.” Jeff Wells’ commenters used the opportunity to make cracks at Poland’s track record with predictions.
• Girish calls Robert B. Ray’s The ABCs of Classic Hollywood ” the best new film book I’ve encountered in a long while.” It sounds fascinating: “Ray’s starting point is this quote from Vincente Minnelli: “I feel that a picture that stays with you is made up of a hundred or more hidden things. They’re things that the audience is not conscious of, but that accumulate.” Ray proposes a fascinating and unorthodox method for discovering these hidden things. For each film, he puts together a collection of ‘entries’, one or more for every letter of the alphabet.”
• Andy Horbal’s going all Web 0.5, using his blog to advertise his email list. I’ll let him explain: “…by the time my friends realized [a movie] had opened, I’d already seen it and was on to the next film.In response to this problem I started a mailing list for everyone I knew who was interested that discussed what was new, what looked good, and when I was planning on seeing everything….[A]fter about two months I believe I have a handle on what I’d like these e-mails to look like and I’m going public: you (yes, you!) can now subscribe to ‘The Movie E-Mail.’” Details at Mirror/Stage.

As IndieWire blogger Eugene Hernandez just said in a post yesterday, Little Miss Sunshine seems to have hit on a formula that was first proven wildly successful by Napoleon Dynamite. That formula, as Hernandez’s industry friend put it, is this:

Quirky comedy + funny dance number at end + premiere at Sundance + Cinetic = big sell to Fox Searchlight.

I completely resist the idea that formulas work in the film industry (or in any creative field, for that matter), but Hernandez’s friend seems to be right about Napoleon and Sunshine. Sigh.

At least this formula is a bit more involved than the one several Slamdance films apparently tried last year: goofy protagonist + outcast friends = hilarious + endearing hit. (See Paul’s post for more on this.)

So what’s with the formulas? When Napoleon first came out, it was the freshness of the film’s approach that made it work. It embodied the Anti-Formula. Obviously, trying to repeat freshness defeats the purpose. (How many times can you successfully repurpose a baby greens salad?) Anyway, I’m planning to see Sunshine tomorrow–I’m curious to see if it hits some version of a true “Napoleon Formula”–the anti-formula that isn’t stale.