Day: November 9, 2004

Forget any concerns about director Mike Nichols having shot some nudie footage of Natalie Portman in Closer (Columbia, 12.3) only to cut some of it out. It’s all stupid hormonal stuff and not worth talking about. What’s been kept in — a sequence between Portman, playing a stripper and wearing a kinky tassled bikini outfit, and Clive Owen in a private strip-club room — is very hot stuff, and I can’t imagine any complaints from anyone about anything. Enough said.

That was a very interesting decision by the Hollywood Foreign Press to classify Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ as a foreign-language film because it’s acted entirely in ancient Aramaic and ancient Latin. In so doing, the org has determined that Gibson’s film is not eligible for a Best Drama Golden Globe award. Except the word “foreign” doesn’t really apply because neither language is spoken anywhere in the world — they’ve been extinct tongues for many centuries. The Oxford Dictionary defines “foreign” as “being from another country,” but the countries or cultures these languages were spoken in centuries ago don’t exist. There is reason to call The Passion of the Christ an exotic language film or a non-English speaking film, obviously, but there is absolutely no factual or rational basis for calling it a “foreign language film.”

I don’t care about Roger Friedman’s motive in floating the idea of Harvey and Bob Weinstein taking over Sherry Lansing’s job and running Paramount Pictures. It may be an actual possibility or just hot air, but….hello?…it’s an excellent idea! An amazing idea. And I don’t care if David Poland or anyone else thinks it’s unlikely. A couple of shrewed, scrappy New York Jews steering the Paramount Pictures ship is an exciting and radiantly beautiful thing to contemplate. And I like the idea of Scott Rudin running Miramax also. It’s all a perfect Hollywood quilt. This industry would instantly become 33% healthier if these two scenarios come to pass.