Day: May 3, 2007

Oscarwatch.com‘s Sasha Stone doesn’t appear to consider me a friend or a supporter any longer because she didn’t send me those May 1st AMPAS lawsuit papers from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, LLP. Probably because of that pissy business from two or three days ago. But I am her supporter and ally as far as her problem with the Academy is concerned.

They’re bullies, these guys….throwing lawyers and lawsuits at a single mom who intelligently promotes the Oscar hoo-hah like a clean machine and who makes the Academy membership and their emotional-whimsical preferences seem much more important than they actually are in the grand scheme. or in any scheme. Shame on the Academy poobahs who pushed and hammered this thing along. Could they be trying to get themselves nominated for a 2007 Odious Award?

I think Sasha’s going to have to change her domain name. I told her months ago she should go for www.sashastone.com. Nice and recognizable..no fuss.

Here’s page one, page two, page three and page four.

I’ve just returned from a 20-minute junket quickie with Parker Posey. The general plan was to talk about Fay Grim (Magnolia, 5.18), her new Hal Hartley movie, but we kind of veered from topic to topic. Here’s the mp3 of our…I was going to say “discussion.” Call it a chat or a ping-pong match with nobody trying to win.

Parker Posey in a sixth-floor bedroom at the Parker Meridien hotel., West Hollywood — Thursday, 5.307, 2:455 pm

I don’t mean to ignore Fay Grim, which is dry and quirky-funny and not at all half bad. It’s just have to wait until it’s time.

I had a nice chat yesterday with Mimi Freedman, the writer- producer of Brando, the two-part Turner Classic Movies doc that ran last Monday and Tuesday nights. (You can’t tell from TCM’s website if any other showings are slated.) Warner Home Video will release a Brando DVD “sometime in the fall,” I’ve been told. Freedman told me that Martin Scorsese once tried to get hold of any discarded footage (or reels) of One-Eyed Jacks, Brando’s only effort as a director, but that he was unsuccessful.

Hey, there’s going to be a Cannes Film Festival showiing of the original 3-D version of Hondo, the 1953 John Wayne western that John Farrow (i.e., father of Mia) directed, with Geraldine Page, Lee Ackers and Ward Bond costarring. I’ve never seen it, much less in the original 3-D process. All I know is that it’s (a) well photographed and (b) not considered to be on the same level as Red River, The Searchers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon or Rio Bravo. Has anyone seen it and is there any kind of consensus?

An actual 3-D image from Hondo, with (l. to r,) Lee Ackers, Geraldine Page, John Wayne and Ward Bond

The Hondo screening will be part of Cannes Film Festival’s Cannes Classics program that Martin Scorsese will be introducing and photo-opping for. Jane Fonda will drop by on Friday, 5.26 for a special screening of Sydney Lumet’s Twelve Angry Men, which her rather Henry produced and starred in.

And Curtis Hanson‘s Lucky You, an unquestionably half-decent poker movie, has, so far, a 20% Rotten Tomatoes rating with guys like the Hollywood Reporter‘s Kirk Honeycutt calling it “dull, dull, dull.” Wrong, wrong, wrong — it’s simply one of those films that chooses to stay with character and the reality of the setting and the story. I didn’t slump, nod off or shift in my seat once….it’s fine. The only two guys who seem to get this so far are the Arizona Star‘s Phil Vallarreal and Kevin Laforest of the Montreal Film Journal.

The Spider-Man 3 Rotten Tomatoes situation as of Thursday morning at 9:45 a.m.: a 68% positive by the rank and filers, and a 53% positive from the cream-of-the-croppers. Homie #1: “Yo, dawg…we really sure about this, man? 53% rating cream of the crop…sounds dicey. Hell, it sounds bad,” Homie #2: “Yeah…a little scary, man…I know. Shoot, hang it…let’s see Lucky You instead.” Homie #1: “Down wit dat.”

Anthony Lane‘s New Yorker pan is glorious fun; it makes you feel as if you’ve almost seen it:

“In an early scene, a meteorite crashes to Earth, and from it crawls what seems to be a tiny garbage sack with half a mind of its own: not a bad image of where this film belongs. And, would you believe, the first person this superblob attaches itself to is, yes, Peter Parker ((Tobey Maguire). It doesn√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢t choose him; nobody has targeted him — of all Earth√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s inhabitants, he just happens to be close by.

“Is this truly the best that the filmmakers can be bothered to do for our delight? Just how easily and stupidly pleased do they presume we are? Peter√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s college professor (Dylan Baker) declares that the black stuff ‘amplifies characteristics of its host.’ Fine, and I vaguely understand what occurs when it latches onto Eddie. The first host, however, is Spider-Man himself, and this is where the film becomes so embarrassing that you have to crouch down and stuff popcorn in your ears.

And this: “It is thrilling to imagine what Guillermo del Toro, who made Pan√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s Labyrinth, or the James Cameron who brought us Terminator 2: Judgment Day, would do with Thomas Haden Church‘s Sandman. Both directors are obsessed with shapeshifters — with their sad restlessness, their ability to conjure threat out of the apparently fragile. The director of Spider-Man 3, Sam Raimi, is unconcerned by such niceties; to him, Sandman is just a bullying baddie against whom Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) must pit his web and his wits.”