Courtesy of Miramax
The comments section of our history of the August Movie has been lively the past few days, with people taking us to task for declaring movies they love (or at least like) examples of the studio castoffs that populate the late-summer release calendar. Passionate defenders have preached the pleasures of Cop Land, The Cell, Stardust, Desperado, and Open Range. Few, though, have stepped forward to proclaim the quality of 54, a sad representative of yet another kind of August Movie: the Miramax-style Misfire. These movies are killed by studio or mini-major heads (sometimes, but not always, Harvey Weinstein*) through constant reshoots and new edits.
54 famously had scenes relit and reedited by Miramax earlier its August 1998
