Word: platoons
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...make no mistake, there is still a big difference between Marine boot camp and Outward Bound. In one platoon at the M.C.R.D., half the recruits admitted they were afraid of heights. Now they are about to endure what the Marines call the "slide for life," clambering up a 35-ft.-high wooden tower and then descending headfirst down wires that stretch across a muddy ditch. A recruit clings like a frightened tree sloth to the wire. Then, slowly, his grip loosens and he plunges into the muddy water. "You just let go. You didn't even try," snaps the angry...
...ABOUT to say that Platoon, Oliver Stone, Marilee Martin, Paul Newman, or Michael Caine didn't individually deserve their statuettes. But taken together, the fact that five sentimental favorites won major awards says something strange about the Oscars. The Academy seems to have given up the ghost of objectivity...
Filmdom's establishment has good reason to be envious, since independents are stealing the most prestigious scenes. When the Academy Awards ceremony takes place next week, the spotlight will shine on two independently produced films, Platoon and A Room with a View, which led the nominations with eight apiece. Last year the top acting Oscars went to A Trip to Bountiful and Kiss of the Spider Woman; both were the work of an independent studio, Island Pictures. The major studios left an opening for such films by sticking too long with expensive formulas calling for car chases, special effects...
...when it comes to profits, the most successful independent movies would put many major-studio pictures to shame. Platoon, which cost $6 million, has grossed $93 million so far, while the $3.5 million A Room with a View is expected to bring in more than $50 million worldwide. Even so, independent productions remain highly risky investments, since fully half of such films never find distributors willing to handle them...
...fastest-rising independent companies are Hemdale, which started in London and moved to Los Angeles in 1978, and Cinecom, a four-year- old Manhattan firm. Hemdale, the producer of Platoon, quickly followed up with Hoosiers this year, a much praised sentimental film about an Indiana basketball team. Cinecom, which backed A Room with a View, this month released Swimming to Cambodia, a $485,000 movie that consists entirely of a monologue by Actor Spalding Gray. While both companies have lately scored huge hits, their philosophy is to survive on modest successes by keeping costs low. Says Amir Malin, Cinecom...