Graham: ‘Hamlet 2′ disses Tucson
by Chuck Graham on Aug. 21, 2008, under CalendarN.M. project underscores film brain drain
"Hamlet 2" made headlines after striking a $10 million distribution deal, but it's box-office fate is yet to be determined.
“Hamlet 2″ is about a high school drama teacher in Tucson. Only, this satirical comedy starring Steve Coogan, Catherine Keener and Elizabeth Shue was filmed in Albuquerque, N.M. Clearly, writer-director Andrew Fleming and co-writer Pam Brady didn’t come to Tucson, or even do much research on our fair city.
Coogan plays a fey and frustrated teacher at West Mesa High School. What kind of a high school name is that? Mesa is a city adjacent to Phoenix, that much-mocked metro area up the freeway. Nobody who knows anything about life in the Baked Apple would make such a gross mistake.
“I read some blogs on it where the director, writer and producer came to Tucson surreptitiously to work on the script,” says Shelli Hall, director of the Tucson Film Office.
It’s a good thing those three were surreptitious. In the script, there are waves of insults about Tucson’s provincial, backward ways. In the opening scene there is an empty stretch of two-lane blacktop, with a couple of mangy saguaros standing watch.
The camera pans right to a weathered city limits sign reading “Tucson” as a voice-over narrator solemnly pronounces this is the city “where dreams go to die.” Granted, Coogan’s schoolteacher character gets no respect from anybody. Because most of the cast members play his disgruntled students, maybe it is appropriate to keep taking pot shots at the city.
But at the movie’s end, one of the so-called responsible adults in the cast tells the students to cheer up: “No matter where you go in life after this, it will always be better than Tucson.”
“Oh . . . lovely. That’s just great,” moans Nathan Ginn, a Tucson writer, producer and actor who starred in last year’s noir thriller by Patrick Roddy, “Red 71.” As a member of Tucson’s film community, Ginn was more upset that still another movie set in Arizona has been snatched away to be shot in New Mexico.
For the past several years, the self-proclaimed Land of Enchantment has been spending megamillions building elaborate soundstages and movie sets, setting up financial incentives to attract the nation’s filmmakers big and small.
“At Sundance last January, I talked to the producer and co-producer of ‘Hamlet 2.’ I’m also friends with, basically, the whole art department who worked on it,” says Justin Kreinbrink, the Tucsonan who made “The Decoy.”
“I guess they thought about filming in Tucson, but it all came down to money, as it always does,” Kreinbrink says. “With all the incentives New Mexico offers compared to Arizona, it was a no-brainer.
“I don’t think they even looked here for locations.”
“‘Hamlet 2′ is a low-budget film that came in under the radar,” says Hall. “I didn’t hear anything about the project until it got to Sundance.
“Arizona does have a tax incentive program, too, but it is more awkward to use, not as film-friendly as the one in New Mexico,” Hall says. “We are trying to get the state Legislature to make Arizona’s incentives more film-friendly. We’ve been working on it for three years. We’re preparing now to make another push in January.”
While the wheels of government turn much slower than the reels in Hollywood, Tucson’s film industry is shrinking just as Albuquerque is turning into the Movieland of Enchantment.
“I was recently in the production office for ‘St. John of Las Vegas’ in Albuquerque and there were several cars in the parking lot with Arizona plates,” Kreinbrink says.
“If I was able to relocate, I would probably give moving to New Mexico some serious thought,” Ginn says. “There simply isn’t enough work here, and it does affect the quality of one’s life.”
Hall confirms the brain and talent drain. “A lot of our Arizona work force is over there right now . . . working,” she says. “Their families are here, but they are over there.”
“To make ‘Hamlet 2,’ they spent $8 million on the movie,” says Kreinbrink. “Then the state of New Mexico wrote the filmmakers a check for $1.4 million as a rebate. So the movie cost them $6.6 million. And at Sundance, they sold it for $10 million.
“That means,” Kreinbrink says dramatically, “They made $3.4 million off of it.”
“Those are the reasons I always hear when filmmakers bypass Arizona to shoot in New Mexico,” adds Hall. “It is because of the tax rebates, low-interest loans and work force credits the state gives for hiring locals. Those are always the reasons.”
As for the future of “Hamlet 2,” it was the hit of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, making headlines with its $10 million film distribution deal. But in keeping with Shakespeare’s own mind-set, there are plenty of ghosts following this picture around.
At Sundance in 1999, which I attended, everybody was raving about a kooky, crazy comedy, “Happy, Texas.” They said it had the edge to cut through all the competition. Steve Zahn got a Sundance award for his acting as the craziest banana of the bunch.
“Happy, Texas” was one of the first Sundance films reported to earn a paycheck worth nearly $10 million. (Miramax did the deed.) I saw the film then and thought it was dumb. Outside the hyperventilated atmosphere of Sundance – in ordinary cities and towns among uninvolved audiences just out for some mindless movie fun on a Saturday night – everything about “Happy, Texas” just seemed too extreme to make any sense.
“Happy, Texas” bombed at the box office. “Hamlet 2″ has the same way-over-the-top attitude. There is nothing so stupid that this cast won’t give it a try. “Hamlet 2″ will face the same fate.
Although Coogan and the filmmakers’ willingness to take political incorrectness to the extreme should be applauded, the material just isn’t that funny. The good news for the Old Pueblo is that when “Hamlet 2″ bombs at the box office, not many people will see those insulting Tucson comments.
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‘Hamlet 2′ review
‘Hamlet 2′ doth stink too much, methinks, says Citizen film critic Chuck Graham
