Month: January 2007

I’m starting to agree — Sundance ’07 is definitely one of the worst in memory. I’ve seen about 16 or 17 films so far, and genuinely liked/admired five — Once, Grace is Gone, Interview, The Savages and Broken English. I missed yesterday afternoon’s press screening of Son of Rambow (described in Variety as “Billy Elliott directed by Tim Burton”) but now that it’s been picked up for $8 million by Paramount Vantage it’ll obviously be viewable down the road. I haven’t written about any of the crappos and mezzo-mezzos — I’m trying to stick to the ones I’ve given a B-plus grade or better, Most Sundance festivals give up about five or six serious stand-outs. The difference this year is that there haven’t been any double grade-As or even solid As, a la Little Miss Sunshine — the ’07 goodies have all been in the B-plus to A-minus range.

“If you fail the first time, try, try, try, try, try, try, try again.” — Peter O’Toole‘s reaction to being Best Actor nominated for Venus.

How did Harvey Weinstein land that distribution deal for Grace is Gone last weekend? A producer at Monday’s Picturehouse party told me that Harvey was so determined to lock things down, he drove over to the condo of the Grace producers at 4 ayem and knocked on the door — bam! bam! bam! I don’t know precisely which Grace producers were in the condo (it could have been John Cusack, Grace Loh, Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Ed Hart and/or Paul Bernstein), but the Weinstein home invasion sent them into a five-alarm mode.
Like terrified rabbits, they all scurried into a bathroom and locked the door to hud- dle alone before talking terms with Harvey. Can you imagine? “He’s here…he’s in the house! What do we do? We have to be on the same negotiating page! Quick…the bathroom! John…! Ed! Everyone in! Lock the door!” Before the sun rose (or maybe a little bit after — I’m not sure), Harvey had acquired distribution rights for $4 million.
This episode reminded me of a term thought up by Paul Theroux in “The Mos- quito Coast” to describe a quality that Allie Fox had — “four o’clock in the morning courage.” In Harvey’s case, it’s four o’clock in the morning bulldog tenacity….same difference.

John Stockwell‘s Turistas (Fox Atomic), which shot in mid ’05 for a cost of $10 million, has earned $7,015,358 so far, according to the IMDB, after seven weeks of play. Understandably, Lionsgate UK has retitled it Paradise Lost for its U.K. and Ireland opening on 4.13.07. What’s happened to Stockwell? He was a GenX Curtis Hanson after making crazybeautiful and Blue Crush, a first-rate, emotionally honest surfing movie, but he’s allowed himself to slide into a pseudo-Lionsgate horror B-movie groove, making flicks about half-dressed kids dodging bad guys and killers in sunny climes (Into the Blue, Turistas). I don’t know the backstory, but it seems as if 2002’s Blue Crush was a kind of yin-yang turning point for the guy. It was his biggest financial success ever (it did around $40 million domestic and decently overseas), but poor Stockwell has been in a kind of Blue Crush jail ever since.

“I’ve been in this business a long time, and Adrienne Shelly‘s Waitress could have come to the festival, gotten a standing ovation and remained unsold. And to sell to Searchlight! She hit the jackpot! I tried to explain how great this was to her mother, Elaine, but even while I was talking we both started crying. But [producer] Michael Roiff and I are sure that Adrienne can still hear the laughter somehow and is happy.

“As someone said at her memorial service, Adrienne’s life may have been cut short, but she sure left her mark.” — from Reid Rosefelt‘s tribute to the late actress-director, on zoomin.com.

“I think it’s wonderful. I think it is not only an outstanding film, but it has created a genuine cultural shift in how people think about what I believe to be one of the most important issues of our times.” — Sen. Barack Obama commenting on An Inconvenient Truth being nominated for the Best Feature Documentary Oscar.

“What basis is there for everyone seeing Dreamgirls as the biggest Best Picture snub? Dreamgirls never won a critics award, nor was it the top film on all that many, if any, top 10 lists. The only reason to consider it a snub is because its assumed front-runner status was banged into our heads all year long. The real snub, in my mind, went to United 93 and Children of Men.” — A reader named “kbowen.” (Wells to kbowen: Agreed.)

The Hollywood Reporter team — Anne Thompson, Gregg Goldstein, Nicole Sperling — has been wailing with the various Sundance acquisition stories that have broken within the past 36 hours or so. Goldstein claimed at last night’s Cinetic party that they’ve whipped Variety‘s ass on most (or many) of these reportings/announcements. I have no reason to doubt this until somebody argues otherwise. It’s all been appearing on Thompson’s Riskybiz Blog….scroll down and read it all. Truthfully? I’m starting to disengage from Sundance a bit. I’ve been humping it for six days straight, 18 or 19 hours a day. 36 hours to go, then I’m gone first thing Thursday.

“Hounddog is an indigestible gumbo of Southern Gothic ingredients seasoned with snake oil, Biblical hash, and thoroughly unpalatable spice,” writes Variety‘s Todd McCarthy.

“[Director] Deborah Kampmeier‘s second feature became notorious even before its premiere as the ‘Dakota Fanning rape movie.’ The problem, however, is not that pivotal scene, which is as tastefully handled as it could be under the circumstances, but the fact that, after a reasonably atmospheric, if uneventful, first hour, the picture subsequently runs right off the rails.
“Aside from Fanning and the controversy, the film has nothing going for it commercially; sales are likely due to the cast, but paying customers will be scarce.”

“Some will suggest that [Dreamgirls‘ loss] is a race thing, that an all-black cast has a hard time with the Academy, ” writes N.Y. Times Oscar guy David Carr (a.k.a., “the Bagger”), “but check out the diversity among the actor nominations and ignore that excuse.
“What happened then? Mainly, Clint Eastwood, deep into his career, innovated midstream and came up with a Japanese take on the Battle of Iwo Jima. It’s the kind of artistic and entrepreneurial performance that merits recognition and the Academy gave it.
“Dreamgirls also got skunked when it came to best director, perhaps because the voters had seen it before in Chicago. Still, the movie is an exquisite restaging of the stage musical and seemed worthy of a nomination. But the Academy, and this is just the Bagger typing in a hotel room, apparently decided that that there was not enough movie in the movie. The Bagger fell for all the stitching between songs, but others did not.”

“I think Sunshine is absolutely the front- runner. And the fact its directors didn’t get nominated is irrelevant. The best picture and best director categories are so ridiculous anyway. How can something be the best picture and not be the best directed? And the reverse.
“So yeah, give props to Sunshine. I saw it for the second time on a plane back from Panama City, and it’s really wonderful, funny, heartwarming, well performed, whatever. And the folks on the plane just loved it. You could tell the ones who weren’t watching were wondering what was going on when, on numerous occasions, half the plane erupted in insane laughter.
“Of course, I still think United 93 is really the best film of the year, but that’s a moot point now, isn’t it?” — hotshot Manhattan entertaiinment journalist Lewis Beale.