The calls and the homework will have to wait since I have to be at a screening of The Women at 7:30, but the rights to make a fact-based, Born Free-like film about a lion named Christian who was born and raised in London for a year (from 1969 to ’70) and was then introduced to the wilds of Africa was recently bid upon by three studios — and Columbia triumphed, I’m told, with Neil Moritz (Vantage Point, The Green Hornet) slated to produce.
Read the Wikipedia page about Christian, and then watch the video above (and try to ignore the godawful music track). The affection is obviously real. How can this not work? Even I would see it and probably like it. If it isn’t overly sweetened and sentimentalized, that is.
Is Barack Obama‘s new 50%-to-42% lead over John McCain (which marks the first time BHO has hit five-oh) a Sarah Pailin-is-a-joke bump, a McCain’s judgment-is-definitely-in-question bump, or…? Or is it too soon for the Palin thing to have taken effect with the flyovers?
Were there any journalists, producers or distributors aboard American Airlines #1586 late this morning, which got into trouble as it took off from LAX for Toronto? A landing tire went “kapow!” just as the jet was leaving the tarmac, so the captain circled over Los Angeles, dumped fuel near Catalina Island and came back to LAX for an emergency landing.
If anyone who reads this column was on-board (or knows someone who was on-board), please regale with your hair-raising experience.
I’m leaving tomorrow around 12:30 pm on Air Canada, so HE will be on blackout for about five or six hours.
Just another digressive cat item, but I’m curious whether other cat owners have ever had a mouthwash moment. Three or four times over the last two days I’ve nuzzled Mouse, my four-month-old Siamese male, after brushing with a mint-flavored toothpaste and gargling with Scope, and each time Mouse has gotten instantly aroused and started licking my lips. Cats tend to like bland human food — chicken, cheese, yogurt, vanilla ice cream, etc. I’ve never heard of any cat ever liking the taste of mint mouthwash, or mint anything. Now I’m starting to wonder if I should get him some chocolate chip mint ice cream for an occasional dessert.
I presume The Envelope‘s Pete Hammond wasn’t referring to yours truly when he attacked “voracious movie bloggers [who] took shots” at David Fincher‘s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button “on the basis of last weekend’s modest Telluride peek” at 20 minutes of footage.
“They would be advised,” Hammond said, “to hold their reviews a few months until the other 2 hours and 25 minutes can be seen.”
Yeah, I reported some downbuzzy stuff (as did an i-Film correspondent and Cinematical‘s Kim Voynar), but I did so with qualms and caveat emptors.
I passed along what I’d been told with “displeasure and irritation,” and said that “I didn’t like hearing this…because I’m a fan of Eric Roth‘s script as well as an overall Fincher fan, [and] so I started arguing with [my sources]. What were people looking for? I asked. What is it that people wanted to happen? It’s just a reel, a taste of a feature film.”
Hammond writes that “despite the doubters, one key studio honcho (and academy member) not connected with the film told us on the basis of what he saw and his personal knowledge of Eric Roth‘s (Forrest Gump) script that he thinks Benjamin Button is easily the one to beat for best picture.”
The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil posted his own piece about the Telluride Button reactions (and counter-reactions) earlier this afternoon.
Forget about Russell Crowe playing Dr. Watson to Robert Downey, Jr.‘s Sherlock Holmes in the Warner Bros./Guy Ritchie flick being prepared. An agency guy just called me to report that Crowe has passed.
The legendary Don LaFontaine, the movie-trailer announcer guy who laughed harder than anyone else at the whorey cliches he was paid to repeat hundreds if not thousands of times over the past 33 years (led by the all-time groaner “in a world where…”), died yesterday at age 68. Good God. It’s like a trapdoor opened and he just fell through it. I’m terribly sorry for his family and friends. And for Don also, of course. I bet he’s pissed about this. I sure would be.
I knew Don slightly. I first met him in ’95 or thereabouts when i interviewed him for my L.A. Times Syndicate column. I then came to know him socially through Cedering Fox over the past couple of years. A good man, quite the wit, always laughed at himself, always with the grin.
And The Winner Is blogger Scott Feinstein has written a short tribute to Don, which includes the audio of a 40 minute interview LaFontaine granted two years ago, as well as clips of a self-parodying video that he and four colleagues shot a decade ago (which has since became a YouTube sensation) and his recent GEICO commercial.
The new Vanity Fair has published an exhaustive photo article aimed at Marilyn Monroe obsessives called “The Marilyn Files.” It’s basically the contents of two filing cabinets — letters, invoices, financial records, mementos, minutae — that chart the story of her life. Photographer Mark Anderson took two years to photograph all this stuff. Presumably he and whomever owns the material are looking to cash in at Sotheby’s.
Behold — Marilyn Monroe’s
1961 IRS tax form. An income of $28 grand and change during the first year of the Kennedy administration wasn’t too shabby as long as you didn’t go nuts, but it wasn’t that flush either, especially for a movie star. Here’s an expense list for that period.
1961 IRS tax form. An income of $28 grand and change during the first year of the Kennedy administration wasn’t too shabby as long as you didn’t go nuts, but it wasn’t that flush either, especially for a movie star. Here’s an expense list for that period.
I’m in a slightly more aware place since posting my Toronto Film Festival priority list nine days ago. Picks have risen and fallen. Marc Abraham‘s Flash of Genius, panned yesterday by Variety‘s Todd McCarthy, has all but dropped off the list while Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millionaire, the hit of the just-wrapped Telluride Flm Festival, and Kathryn Bigelow‘s The Hurt Locker, boosted by a recent Peter Howell rave, have risen to the very top.
The new priorities are as follows: (1) Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Burn After Reading (bad reviews be damned — l love me my Coens), (2) Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millionaire, (3) Ed Harris ‘s Appaloosa, (4) Guillermo Arriaga‘s The Burning Plain, (5) Steven Soderbergh‘s Che, (6) Kathryn Bigelow‘s Hurt Locker, (7) Matteo Garrone‘s Gomorra, (8) Spike Lee‘s Miracle at St. Anna, (9) David Koepp‘s Ghost Town, and (10) Guy Ritchie‘s Rocknrolla.
Followed by (11) Darren Aronofsky‘s Wrestler, (12) Kevin Smith‘s Zack and Miri Make a Porno, (13) Kari Skogland‘s Fifty Dead Men Walking, (14) Michael McGowan‘s One Week, (15) Richard Eyre‘s The Other Man, (16) Jean-Francois Richet‘s Public Enemy Number One, (17) Gina Prince-Bythewood‘s Secret Life of Bees, (18) Ari Folman‘s Waltz With Bashir, (19) Phillipe Claudet‘s I’ve Loved You So Long, and (20) Laurent Cantet‘s Entre Les Murs.
The next ten are (21) Rian Johnson‘s Brothers Bloom, (22) Barbet Schroeder‘s Inju, (23) James Stern and Adam Del Deo‘s Every Little Step, (24) strong>Stephan Elliotts Easy Virtue, (25) Bruno Barreto‘s Last Stop 174, (26) Stephen Belber‘s Management, (27) Richard Linklater‘s Me and Orson Welles, (28) Peter Sollett‘s Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, (29) Matt Tyrnauer‘s Valentino, and (30) Daniel Burman‘s Empty Nest.
The final group is made up of (31) Max Farberbock‘s Woman in Berlin, (32) Jerzy Skolimowski‘s Four Nights with Anna (which I missed in Cannes), (33) Olivier Assayas‘ Heure de Ete, (34) Nigel Cole‘s $5 A Day, (35) Anthony Fabian‘s Skin, (36) Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige‘s I Want To See, (37) Scott McHehee and David Siegel‘s Uncertainty, (38) Cyrus Nowratesh‘s Stoning of Soraya M., (39) Brian Goodman‘s What Doesn’t Kill You and (40) Kevin Rafferty‘s Harvard Beats Yale….even if it played at Manhattan’s Film Forum last fall.
I probably won’t be re-viewing anything I’ve already seen here or anything I saw last May in Cannes — Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Three Monkeys, Neil Burger‘s Lucky Ones, Rod Lurie‘s Nothing But The Truth, Bill Maher and Larry Charles‘ Religulous, Jonathan Demme‘s Rachel Getting Married, Mike Leigh‘s Happy Go Lucky, Gavin O’Connor‘s Pride and Glory, etc.
We’ve now reached the two-thirds mark in the 2008 calendar — eight months down, four to go. Which means it’s time for another update of the best, worst and in-betweens. I’ve mentioned 87 films here (not counting no-sees). There have been fifteen, I believe, that deserve to be called creme de la creme.
Best So Far (in order of excellence): Man on Wire, WALL*E, The Dark Knight, Tell No One, The Bank Job, The Visitor, Shine a Light, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, Iron Man, Young @ Heart, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, Son of Rambow, In Search of a Midnight Kiss. (15) If you add 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (the latter technically being an ’07 film even though it opened on January 23), the total is 16.
Decent, Solid, Respectable: In Bruges, Stop-Loss, The Band’s Visit, Cassandra’s Dream, Frozen River, Cloverfield, War, Inc., Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, The Incredible Hulk, Taxi to the Dark Side, Chicago 10, The Counterfeiters, Then She Found Me, Standard Operating Procedure, Red, Battle for Haditha, Speed Racer (more for its ambitious and mostly unique visual design than for what it actually was altogether), Surfwise, Encounters at the End of the World, Elegy, OSS117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, The Edge of Heaven, Mongol, Irina Palm. (24)
Only Saw Half Of It, Liked It Somewhat, Intend to Try Again: Trans-Siberian. (1)
Contains Some of the Worst (i.e., Most Infuriating) Whip-Pan Amateur Video Photography in the History of Motion Pictures: Trouble The Water (1).
Best Ridiculous-Machismo Action Movie of the year: Rambo. (1)
One of the Worst Third Acts in Motion Picture History: Hancock (1)
Fairly Good Doc with Awful ’60s and Early ’70s Rock Music Soundtrack (due to being oppressively “classic rock”-ish): Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (1)
Flawed Film, Genuinely Creepy Vibe, Righteous Theme: The Happening (1)
Best Stupid-Ass Adam Sandler Attitude Comedy In Years: You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. (1)
Loathsome but Respectable: Funny Games. (1)
Not Bad but Also Bothersome, Irritating: The Tracey Fragments, The Babysitters (2)
Passable but Mostly Negligible (in order of preference): Be Kind Rewind, Bottle Shock, Semi-Pro, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Wackness, Leatherheads, Nim’s Island, Forgetting Sarah Marshall (galumph aesthetic, penis shots), 21, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (fastest fading movie of the year, death-button upon second viewing), Henry Poole Is Here, Kung Fu Panda, Get Smart, Street Kings, Garden Party. (15)
Worst So Far (in order of awfulness): Mamma Mia!, Wanted, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Sex and the City, Meet Dave, Star Wars: The Clone Wars,10,000 B.C., Vantage Point, Mad Money, 88 Minutes, Hamlet 2, My Blueberry Nights, The Hottie and the Nottie, Chapter 27, Step Brothers, The Love Guru, Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns, Deception, Drilllbit Taylor, College Road Trip, Smart People, What Happens in Vegas, Reprise. (23)
Didn’t See ‘Em: Lou Reed’s Berlin, Death Defying Acts, Eight Miles High, The House Bunny, Beautiful Losers, Beer For My Horses, City of Men, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, Married Life, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Redbelt, Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2, The Fall, The Foot Fist Way, Babylon A.D., College, Disaster Movie, I Served the King of England, My Mexican Shivah, Sukiyaki Western Django (21)
- All Hail Tom White, Taciturn Hero of “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Roughly two months ago a very early draft of Eric Roth‘s screenplay for Killers of the Flower Moon (dated 2.20.17,...
More » - Dead-End Insanity of “Nomadland”
Frances McDormand‘s Fern was strong but mule-stubborn and at the end of the day self-destructive, and this stunted psychology led...
More » - Mia Farrow’s Best Performances?
Can’t decide which performance is better, although I’ve always leaned toward Tina Vitale, her cynical New Jersey moll behind the...
More »
- Hedren’s 94th
Two days ago (1.19) a Facebook tribute congratulated Tippi Hedren for having reached her 94th year (blow out the candles!)...
More » - Criminal Protagonists
A friend suggested a list of the Ten Best American Crime Flicks of the ‘70s. By which he meant films...
More » - “‘Moby-Dick’ on Horseback”
I’ve never been able to give myself over to Sam Peckinpah’s Major Dundee, a 1965 Civil War–era western, and I’ve...
More »