Day: June 28, 2005

It turns out the Russell Crowe phone-throwing episode was captured on tape. It’s also being reported that Crowe didn’t just throw a phone at Mercer Hotel concierge Nestor “Josh” Estrada, but also a vase. It’s also been written in this “Page Six” piece that what got Crowe so enraged was Estrada saying “whatever” after Crowe repeatedly complained that he couldn’t get an international phone connection. Now I know who the real bad guy is. I’ve dealt with guys like Estrada all my life and their “whatever” attitudes about life’s challenges, and they really don’t belong in service industries. When a celebrity wants you to hop, there is one and only one answer, and that is “how high?” A guy who says “whatever” about anything a valued customer needs is selfish and indifferent and living deep inside his own flabby head. And now Estrada has an attorney, Eric Franz, trying to milk Crowe for all he can…despite Estrada’s having barely been grazed by the flying phone. Estrada is not a man — he’s a girl. He’s the kind of guy who always goes “waaahh, you hurt my feelings….waahh, I’m telling the teacher” when he bruises his elbow or scrapes his knee. Crowe acted in a vulgar and detestable manner by doing what he did but if you’re going to act like a brute, third-raters like Josh Estrada are the best ones to give it to. This column stands four-quare against anyone and anything who says “whatever” in response to any kind of hard-to-figure situation…unless, of course, the using of this term is in some way appropriate.

I would love to jump into War of the Worlds (having seen it last night) but along with everyone else Paramount publicity insisted on a written pledge that I not review this Steven Spielberg film until Wednesday morning. I think it’s fair, however, to pass along one bit of reportage. The widely-buzzed-about disappointment with the finale, which I passed along in this space two or three days ago, is not about Spielberg’s decision to go with the the original H.G. Wells ending. It is not — not — about earthly bacteria in the alien’s bloodstream. As fantastic and genuinely scary as most of the film is (c’mon…you knew this would be the case), I can tell you that people sitting near me inside the Zeigfeld theatre at 9:05 pm last night were audibly moaning and whimpering when this offending scene unfurled. (It turns out, by the way, that Ain’t It Cool News didn’t break the review embargo — Paramount let them skate on the whole thing.)

The dozens of oddball revisions and reshufflings aside (which are fine — Peter Jackson isn’t doing a Gus Van Sant-folllowing Psycho remake), the new King Kong trailer is actually fairly (emphasis on the “f” word) cool. It’s just that his criteria seems to have been “how can I do this my way, so it doesn’t look like I’m copying?” instead of “how can I take what’s already been done very well and make it better, deeper, spookier…more haunting?” But I love the seeming fact that Jackson has Kong doing his Manhattan rampage in the winter, with snow on the streets…brilliant.