Month: February 2006

Forbes magazine has asked three critics (Richard Roper, Neil Rosen, Jeffrey Lyons) which are the ten best films ever made about money. What a question! Aren’t 70% to 80% of all the films ever made in one way or another about people trying to make, steal, hold onto or somehow get hold of more money? They didn’t choose Rififi or Heat or Eric von Stroheim‘s Greed or L’eclisse…this is lame. The ten they chose suggest their real criteria was choosing the best movies about greed, avarice and scam artists, are Wall Street, Trading Places (what?), The Sting, Boiler Room, Ocean’s Eleven (’60 version), It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Casino, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (good choice) and American Pscyho (another good one).

Here’s a mildly amusing N.Y. Times piece on the “daunting” challenges being faced by Jon Stewart and his team of writers over Stewart’s hosting of the Oscar telecast 13 days from now. Screw daunting. The only way to look at Oscar hosting is to assume you won’t be asked to return. Just do the job according to your best instincts…as long as they’re not like Chris Rock‘s. Ben Karlin, Stewart’s head writer, tells Jacques Steinberg that “when you step outside the process and think about it, you realize that the thing you’re working on is going to be seen by more people than anything you’ve ever done. That’s a great motivator. I would put that second to fear.” Asked if any particular celebrity should fear Stewart’s satirical wrath, Karlin declares that “Meryl Streep has gotten a free ride for too long…she’s going down.” He also says “we’re hoping to disappoint fans of The Daily Show and similarly disappoint new fans who had no idea who Jon was.”

David Carr‘s piece about the trepidations and nail-bitings over possible indictments stemming from the Anthony Pellicano wire-tapping mess (“A B-Movie Becomes a Blockbuster”) is another reason why Carr should continue doing his Carpetbagger column 24/7 after the Oscar race concludes. It’s always a tasty read, it’s got attitude, and is well-reported and well-written. The wire-tapping case against Pellicano “could ultimately threaten the reputation and even the freedom of some of the entertainment industry’s most prominent figures,” he notes, and “also serves as a reminder that even though the studios are now just one more adjunct of large media companies, Hollywood has always been a wide-open town that lives by its own rules. Many recognizable names have been questioned, among them Bert Fields, whose client list includes some of the city’s better-known names, including Michael S. Ovitz, the once-powerful talent agent, and Brad Grey, now the chairman of Paramount. People who were in litigation against both men were subjected to background checks and wiretapping, according to the indictment, but neither has been implicated in any criminal activity.” Yet. As Carr adds, “With the indictment of Terry N. Christensen, a respected member of the Los Angeles bar [hit] with wiretapping and conspiracy charges in connection with the divorce case of Kirk Kerkorian, the billionaire investor, no one knows which way the marble will roll next.” And “given that federal investigators are in receipt of an uncertain number of recorded conversations, all those being questioned have to answer knowing that they may face federal perjury charges if they are less than forthcoming.”

The BAFTA Awards bestowed one very cool award Saturday night: Their Best Film not in the English language honor went to De Battre Mon Coeur S’est Arrete (The Beat that My Heart Skipped (Pascal Caucheteux/ Jacques Audiard). Otherwise their choices were either nationalistically self-serving or way too Hollywood: Best Film — Brokeback Mountain; Alexander Korda award for outstanding British film of the year (bullshit!) — Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit; Carl Foreman award for special achievement by a British Director, writer or producer in their first feature film — Joe Wright (director, Pride & Prejudice;
David Lean Award for Achievement in Direction — Brokeback Mountain‘s Ang Lee; Best Original Screenplay — Crash (Paul Haggis/Bobby Moresco); Best Adapted Screenplay — Brokeback Mountain (Larry Mcmurtry/Diana Ossana)….I can’t do this any more.

Poor Richard Bright (pot-bellied button-man Al Neri to Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone) was run over by a bus on Columbus Avenue and killed. He was a Texas con artist who stole a black briefcase full of cash from Ali McGraw in The Getaway, and then was elbowed in the face three times by Steve McQueen. I’ll never forget his portrayal of a gay guy who was left by Tom Berenger in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and wailed as Berenger walked away, “Doohhnnn’t go!” He was “Burt” to Harry Dean Stanton’s “Curt” in Rancho Deluxe. He was one of the goons waiting for Laurence Olivier at Kennedy airport in Marathon Man who chuckled when Olivier looked at the Americans going to and fro in the terminal and said, “They always thought God was on their side…now, I think, they are not so sure.” And we all remember that moment when Pacino hugged John Cazale at the end of The Godfather, Part II, and the ice-cold look he gave Bright at that moment.

A guy wrote me and said he was “baffled by [my] fascination with the silly Film Snobs book. Leone really is a greater director than Fellini, so what’s the problem?” And I answered back, “Leone… endless closeups, closeups, closeups….middle-aged guys with lined, leathery faces staring hard at other guys with lined, leathery faces at the train depot, and somebody finally shoots. He’s a stylist, not an artist..not even in the same realm as early ’50s to early ’60s Fellini.”

It felt for a while like I was the only one carrying the ball for Fox Home Video’s DVD of Lamont Johnson’s The Last American Hero — now Glenn Erickson (a.k.a., DVD Savant) has stepped up to the plate. “This unpretentious and uncluttered mini-epic about moonshining and stock car racing in the rural south accomplishes an impressive feat,” he says. “It’s intelligent enough to make viewers forget the idiocy of good-ole-boy action comedies like Smokey and the Bandit and The Dukes of Hazzard.” The way I put it was, “There was only one high-velocity ’70s redneck film that was any good, and it wasn’t even a redneck film.”

Visiting Jett in San Francisco today, tomorrow and Tuesday. The Wi-Fi at the Tropicana hotel (south of Market, near the Castro) supposedly works. Here’s hoping.

I happened to come upon this color shot of Lee Harvey Oswald (snapped on 11.23.63) on The Smoking Gun earlier today, and it hit me that every photo I’ve seen of the guy my entire life has been in black and white…until today. And I now think Oliver Stone should have gotten somebody besides Gary Oldman to play him in JFK.

Former Salon critic Charles Taylor (a major film critic who warrants absolute respect, despite the fact that he likes Mission to Mars) and Jeremiah Kipp talk frankly about movies and the political currents that led to Taylor’s dismissal from Salon in early ’05. The piece appears on Matt Zoller Seitz‘s The House Next Door blog.

There’s an attractive “Great Performers” gallery in Sunday’s N.Y. Times magazine with photos by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin and a quickie intro by Lynn Hirschberg. Neat impressionistic face- and body-painting shots of Charlize Theron, Reese Witherspoon, Vera Farmiga (great in Down to the Bone), etc. But I don’t get the cat eyes on George Clooney. It’s just not in the same vein as the other shots…not decorative…oddball …creepy no matter how you slice it.

Just can’t do those Gurus of Gold inputs no more. Many thanks to David Poland for honoring me with an invitation to keep voting, but I’m Guru’d out, man. I’ve been Heath Ledger-ed, George Clooney-ed, Felicity Huffman-ed, Academy-soaked, Karen Fried-icized, Tony Angelotti-sized, Reese Witherspoon-ed, Philip Seymour Hoffman-ed and Paul Haggis-ed to death. Two weeks and two days and it’s over. I love the hoopla and those Oscar contention ads and the parties and all, but I can’t be the only one feeling this way.