N.Y. Times staff writers David Halbfinger and Allison Hope Weiner — sniffing around for a story after last week’s news that attorney Bert Fields will skate in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping prosecution — have gone after Clint Eastwood‘s Flags of Our Fathers for not making more money last weekend.

Earning a meager $10.2 million on 1800 screens — described as “a relatively tiny beachhead that did not match expectations or its mostly strong reviews” — means casting a moderately negative light on the fact that Paramount is now going to have to spend a shitload on their Flags Oscar campaign to keep it in the game because industry folk sometimes dismiss would-be Best Picture contenders if they don’t connect strongly with the paying public.
This isn’t one of those the-ship-has-been-hit-by-a-torpedo stories. Nobody’s yelling “general quarters!” It’s more in the realm of a do-we-have-enough-fuel-to-make- it-to-port-without-having-to-row? stories.
Halbfinger and Weiner are too immersed in their usual airs of circumspect Times– ian posturing to be blunt about it, but their story’s bottom-line verdict is this: a weak box-office means that even if Flags winds up with a Best Picture nomination (which may well happen due to the wide respect enjoyed by Eastwood), forget the Big Win. This movie is not Million Dollar Baby and Clint’s already got two Best Picture Oscars. Spread it around.
Flags is listing somewhat because — hello? — the core audience appears to be over-40 boomer males and because it’s not getting much support from the under-30s, who aren’t exactly flocking to it, probably because they think it’s too old-guyish or lacking a certain 21st century visual vitality, or perhaps because they feel it’s overly thoughtful and meditative and we don’t want too much of that shit weighing us down, right?
A lot of HE readers responded to Peter Howell‘s observation last Saturday about older people constituting the bulk of the audience at a Toronto screening he attended, and…well, c’mon, the idea that young people aren’t digging it that much or even giving it a shot seems fairly obvious to me. But Halbfinger and Weiner barely mention the age/generation factor. They breathe on it but that’s all.

They mainly stay in their own comfort zone and ask whether or not Flags could have opened on an earlier or later date, and mention that a lack of big-name stars probably didn’t help, and that the glowing reviews didn’t seem to help much. They also quote Paramount distribution chief Rob Moore as suggesting that if anything goes wrong, it’s Clint’s fault because he was running the show all along. (Remem- ber Charles Grodin pointing to Dyan Cannon at the end of Heaven Can Wait and shouting, “She did it! She did it!”?)
Their best quote is from DreamWorks marketer and Oscar strategist Terry Press, who, according to Halbfinger and Weiner, believes that “the film’s reviews hold out hope that, once the movie makes it to December, it could wind up on the year’s- best lists and start piling up the kind of accolades that might prompt moviegoers to give it another look.”
“When you have that level of respect, you have to go the distance here,” Press says. “There is no other choice for a movie like this but to go the distance.” That is one thing this movie has in spades, even from mixed-reaction types like myself — respect. That in itself may provide the necessary fuel.

Last Friday’s Borat press conference included this exchange between producer-writer-star Sacha Baron Cohen (in full Borat character, of course…the guy never lets his real self, whomever and whatever that is, pop through) and L.A. Daily News critic Bob Strauss , who got a bit bored with the heavily-scripted nature of the press conference and went with a sudden urge to heckle Cohen and…you know, swat the tennis ball back and forth and see what might happen. Here’s Strauss’s recollection of how it went down, and here’s a link to IGN’s press conference video.

This Guardian piece by L.A. correspondent Dan Glaister says almost 900 African-American Marines took part in the battle of Iwo Jima — mainly in a backup/ support mode but with some engaging in sporadic combat — and yet there’s not a single American-American face in Clint Eastwood‘s Flags of Our Fathers. A Warner Bros spokesperson tells Glaister that “the film is correct based on the book” — i.e., James Bradley and Ron Powers‘ book of the same name. For what it’s worth, I called and asked my dad — a Marine lieutenant who fought all through the 35-day Iwo Jima battle — if he ran into any black troops, and he said, “No, I didn’t see any. But the Marines Corps. was very racist back then.”

I’m in full agreement with the second half of the second story in today’s Fox 411 column, in which Roger Friedman rips The U.S. vs. John Lennon a new one.

Friedman begins with the obvious about David Leaf and John Scheinfeld‘s film, which is that it opened limited via Lionsgate on 9.29.06, earned about $551,821 (per the IMDB) and is now — a bit more than three weeks later — gone. Friedman attributes this relatively short theatrical life to Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono, the film’s executive producer, who “did here what she accomplished last summer in her Broadway musical about the late Beatle, which was to entirely rewrite or omit [Lennon’s] history.
“Gone are the years 1973 and 1974 when Lennon had left Ono for May Pang and lived in Los Angeles. Erased is Lennon’s elder son, Julian, as well as nearly all mention of the Beatles. Never even spoken are the names of the other Beatles. What seems pretty clear is that Leaf and Scheinfeld made a deal with the devil. Ono isn’t listed as one of the producers — there are 16 altogether — but she’s thanked so many times in the credits that it’s almost a joke.
“Leaf and Scheinfeld clearly would not have had her participation, rights to music and videos and Lennon’s likeness without her assent. The result is yet another Ono history hatchet job that no one can really take seriously. What a shame.”
“This mirrors what I said about the film last August, which was that the Lennon portrayed in The U.S. vs John Lennon “is indeed scrubbed clean and phony as a three-dollar bill, and there’s no doubt in my mind that Leaf decided on this portrait — Lennon as a kind-of St. Francis of the anti-war movement, a guy who did nothing but good things and spoke only of love and peace and stopping the killing — under the influence of his and Scheinfeld’s alliance with Lennon’s widow.
“I call it the ‘Curse of Ono‘ — the more control she seems to have over any portrait of the late ex-Beatle, the more sugar-coated it turns out.
“Like anyone else, Lennon was a mixed bag — part genius, part beautiful guy, part angry guy, part saint, part asshole, part man-of-courage, part prima donna, part gifted troubadour, part abusive drunk (during his 1974 ‘lost weekend’ phase), part mystical seeker. But you only get the positive stuff from Leaf-Scheinfeld-Ono. And after an hour or so of the vigilant, heroic, positive-minded Lennon, you want to barf.”

In early ’99, more than seven and a half years ago, everyone was talking about the studio version of Brian Helgeland‘s Payback — a remake of John Boorman‘s Point Blank as well as a re-adaptation of Donald Westlake‘s “Parker” novel — vs. the rumored Helgeland version that had been suppressed.
I distinctly remember asking then-Paramount publicist Jasmine Madatian at a Westwood screening about the “other” version of Payback at a screening and her telling me, “Jeffrey, what are you saying? There is no other version!”

Now comes a Harry Knowles review of an Austin screening of the Helgeland version, now being called Payback:Straight Up. Harry is calling it “a complete overhaul. No Kris Kristofferson, no kidnapped son sub-plot, no boxing match and no pulled punches.
“This [new version] is a mean sucker punch, gutter dirty, pissed-off piece of pulp art! Gibson is not ‘the likable superstar’ in this film. He beats the shit out of Deborah Kara Unger in this version. He is straight to the point, no cookie-cutter bullshit. This is the way a Parker novel by Donald Westlake should be handled.
“The film is leaner and meaner. There are no explosions and needless tacked on gore. This is brutal and hard-nosed. Oh, and immensely satisfying!!!
“Here’s the problem though. At this point, according to Helgeland at the screening, the film will most likely end up going to DVD in February or March – with a minor dump into a few theaters here or there. I completely get how this film from 7 years ago isn’t a big priority. It was a tiny, small budget film from a prior regime that did its business on DVD. And the investment in allowing Brian to finish this cut is also minuscule. I, also completely get that if you just hit this straight to DVD, you’ll make a killing, theoretically.
“However, Payback isn’t one of the great Mel Gibson movies in most people’s eyes. It was that Mel flick he did before Lethal Weapon 4. The one where he didn’t fight Jet Li. But to really get the audience’s attention, I think you’ve got to get this film back on to screens.
“This is a radically different film. Better music, better editing, better storytelling and just flat out a great film.
“I don’t expect Paramount to make it a big release. Frankly, I don’t think that would work. However, I really think handing the film over to Paramount Vantage could be an ideal way to treat this tiny crime film the way it ought to be treated, with a team that would help it in a limited release, that built upon the critical acclaim that this cut would receive by critics everywhere.”

That scene in The Departed when Jack Nicholson‘s gang meets that gang of Asian thugs to sell those stolen missile-guiding microchips? Jack mentions the basic concept of payment for goods, and to underline the point in a crudely ethnic vein, he says, “No tickee, no laundry.” Wrong. The perjorative Chinese immigrant expression is “no tickee, no washee .”

A nicely written, curiously selective Hollywood trend piece by Time‘s Rebecca Winters Keegan about the Splat Pack — the latest, hottest crop of English-speaking horror filmmakers: Leigh Whannell (screenwriter of Saw I, II and III; actor in I and II), James Wan (director of Saw, Death Sentence), Rob Zombie (The Devil’s Rejects, the new Halloween), Eli Roth (Hostel), Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes, the forthcoming Mirrors), Neil Marshall (The Descent, the forthcoming Doomsday) and Saw III director Darren Lynn Bousman. I didn’t notice any mentions of Severance director Christopher Smith or Black Sheep helmer Jonathan King. And except for Wan, there’s no mention of any particular Asian horror-meisters.

Three or four months ago I was taken off the Movie City News columnist links — demoted — and grouped in with the very formidable Cindy Adams, Nikki Finke, Mark Ebner , Jeannette Walls and Rush & Molloy as a gossip. Two days ago I was restored to the colum- nist ranks, although I’m still lumped in with the gossips. Either it’s a mistake and or I did something to warrant reconsideration. 10:50 pm update: Nope…a mistake! I’m just a gossip again.

Pete Hammond has listed several actors and actresses in his Hollywood Wiretap piece about how playing real-life figures seems to usher in Oscar contender talk. Typically comprehensive (Hammond knows his stuff) but a little too generous. Here’s HE’s tough-darts, hard-odds rundown:

the great Ben Sliney (seriously) as himself in United 93

First group: (a) Ben Affleck as Superman actor George Reeves in Hollywoodland / HE verdict: forget Venice; (b) Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin in Last King of Scotland / HE verdict : is all this Forrest-is-getting-weaker, peaked-too-soon talk being kicked around all over or…?; (c) Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth and Michael Sheen as Tony Blair in The Queen / HE verdict : Mirren’s locked; Sheen’s looking pretty good for supporting; (d) Sienna Miller as Edie Sedgwick in Factory Girl / HE verdict: Miller’s terrif but the nommie thing’s on hold as no one except myself and F.X. Feeney have seen the film; (e) Renee Zellweger as Beatrix Potter in Miss Potter / HE verdict: has anyone seen this film, and if if she’s good isn’t the Zellwegger animus factor still pretty strong?
Second group: (f) Annette Bening as Deidre Burroughs in Running With Scissors / HE verdict: Bening’s a top-notch, very well-liked actress, but her performance has a certain root-canal quality; (g) Derek Luke as South African freedom fighter Patrick Chamusso in Catch A Fire / HE verdict: I bought and respcted his performance 100%, but is it Oscar-y enough?; (h) Adam Beach as Ira Hayes in Flags Of Our Fathers / HE verdict: chops aren’t there; (i) Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maria Bello, Maggie Gyllenhaal as their real life 9/11 counterparts in World Trade Center / HE verdict: Bello or Gyllenhaal, maybe, but forget the guys; (j) Gretchen Mol‘s performance as a legendary ’50s pin-up model in The Notorious Bettie Page / HE verdict: won’t happen;
Third group: (k) Kirsten Dunst as Marie-Antoinette / HE verdict: c’mon…not a serious proposition; (l) Ed Harris as Ludwig van Beethoven in Copying Beethoven / HE verdict : has anyone seen this?; (m) Keisha Castle Hughes as Mary, mother of Jesus, in The Nativity Story / HE verdict : something tells me her being actually preggers at age 16 is going to work against her on some level; (n) Toby Jones and Sandra Bullock as Truman Capote and Harper Lee in Infamous / HE verdict : forget it; and…
Year’s Best Performance by a Non-Actor: (o) Ben Sliney as himself in United 93 — in all seriousness, a brilliant, fully believable, totally lived-in performance / HE verdict : Sliney’s the guy.

Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged on “Meet the Press” this morning that he’s considering a run for president in 2008, backing off previous statements that he would not do so. That’s it…Hilary’s over. She can run in the primaries and do whatever, but she was pretty much dismissed before as a candidate with any chance in hell of getting any kind of sizable support from the red-staters, and now she’s really over. So in the general election it’ll be Obama vs…?

Here’s my third and final Flags/Emily thematic link item. No more, I promise, but anyone who saw Flags of Our Fathers this weekend definitely has to listen to this. If you want to be thorough about it, read item #1 and item #2 first.