Even though school is still in session in much of the US (where primary/secondary students usually aren’t done until June), and the weather is capricious at best, Hollywood would have us believe it’s summer, with summer movie season starting the first weekend in May because Marvel tricked everyone into thinking that’s a robust box office weekend (I did the non-Marvel math, it’s not!).
Summer movie has begun, though, and with it came Chris Pine’s directorial debut, Poolman. I didn’t enjoy it at TIFF, and Chris had to take a swath of bad reviews on the chin, but as Lainey wrote last week of his response, “…it’s not defensive, it’s not delusion, it’s acceptance without compromise.”
Chris’s attitude to the bad reviews has been refreshing, as he committed to his vision and his love of the work, his work. He stood by it, he didn’t get defensive and pissy, he did his best to shrug it off and create a love fest for his movie, and for Los Angeles, his hometown and where Poolman is set. I appreciate Chris Pine’s response to bad reviews even more after Jerry Seinfeld’s diaper baby whine-fest following the negative critical reception of Unfrosted, his Pop Tart making-of sponcon movie.
I tried watching Unfrosted, it’s un-watchably bad (Poolman, at least, is watchable), the most branded of the recent spate of brand movies, it is totally uncritical and un-satirical, which makes it exactly the kind of crass capitalistic exercise everyone feared Barbie would be. But rather than stand by his vision even if no one else embraced it—as he previously did with Bee Movie—Seinfeld spent his whole press tour shaking his fist at clouds.
(Josh Gondelman delivered an excellent pep talk for Seinfeld, pointing out that “…it seems like you miss being a kid, and that’s not the fault of kids today”.)
Anyway, I didn’t like Poolman, but I DO like how Chris Pine responded to negative reviews, which actually makes me feel bad, not for my review, but because audiences didn’t turn up for Best Chris, either. Poolman opened this weekend with $131,000, not bad for a limited release…except it opened in 162 theaters, which is not THAT limited of a release, and breaks down to $808 per theater. In contrast, I Saw The TV Glow—Jane Schoenbrun’s stupendous film about the trap of nostalgia—played on 21 screens and made $195,000. And Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s follow-up to Drive My Car, Evil Does Not Exist, played on 34 screens and made $102,700 in its second week ($165,000 total). So Poolman had 100+ more screens than those other top-tier specialty releases and did worse.
It's a bummer, not unlike The Fall Guy stumbling last weekend, because Chris Pine and Ryan Gosling are the closest thing to under-50 Movie Stars we have, yet audiences don’t turn up for them (as a leading man, Gosling actually has a rather dismal track record). But Chris Pine is sticking to his good vibes only attitude, apparently, and remains committed to his short-shorts aesthetic. Here he is over the weekend in short-shorts, with his guns out, because the sun’s out. Movies are bombing and biceps are on display—sounds like summer to me!
