Month: December 2007

I’m not calling this “odd,” but it’s certainly worth noting that two Warner Bros. releases opening within three weeks of each other — Kirsten Sheridan‘s August Rush (11.21) and Francis Lawrence ‘s I Am Legend (12.14) — appear to have used the exact same colonial-era or 19th Century townhouse building on Washington Square Park north (a building or two east of Fifth Avenue and a stone’s throw from the Washington Square arch) for a key location in their respective films.

Either the brick building on the lower right or the one right next to it. (I think.)

If not, they used two buildings adjoining each other or certainly no more than two buildings apart. And both very close to the Arch with shots in both films capturing the exact same neighborhood perspective.

A fair portion of the action in I Am Legend happens inside the brick-facade, three-story townhouse in which Will Smith‘s “Robert Neville” character lives, with the camera catching sight of the nearby Arch at least a couple of times. In August Rush, Jonathan Rhys Meyer and Keri Russell‘s characters meet at a party in either the same building or one very close. They go up to the roof and talk and eventually make love (which results in Russell getting pregnant with a kid who is played later in the film by Freddie Highmore).

I don’t know when I Am Legend and August Rush were shot in Manhattan, but it can be presumed either late ’06 or winter-spring ’07. If their schedules touched, one imagines that the location scouts for the higher-budgeted I Am Legend tipped the indie-level August Rush team about sharing the building. Maybe some kind of deal was finagled in which the Rush guys were able to come in and use the location for a day or two just before (or just after) Legend used it. If no such arrangement was made, fine…but it’s a hell of a coincidence.

I would make calls about this, but I’ve got enough aggravation. I know how it works when you try to get info from below-the-liners, who are always terrified about talking to the press. It can sometimes take a couple of days before anyone will call you back, much less level with you…and for what? I know what I know. If anyone knows anything beyond the visually obvious, please get in touch. Thank you.

Indiana Jones fans have been scrutinizing the bridge of the nose on the skull in the poster for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Dreamamount, 5.22.08). Look closely and you’ll see what appears to be an “alien face.” (Think “Puck” in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.) Pretty damn bald of the marketing guys, no? This is naturally triggering talk that outer-space guys factor into the plot as an “extra kick” on top of the bad-guy Russians (one of whom is played by Cate Blanchett).

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull/alien crop from official release poster

The 2007 Critics Choice Award nominees from the Broadcast Film Critics Association. Due respect but no comment. Wait, here’s one: If the BFCA finds the courage to not give their Best Supporting Actress award to Amy Ryan but to I’m Not There‘s Cate Blanchett instead, they’ll be at least partially redeemed in my eyes.

Not that the BFCA needs to care one iota about my judgments in this matter. I’m just saying that the Amy Ryan thing has become a slight issue (critics groups falling over like synchronized bowling pins, one after another), and the BFCA has a real chance to show that it’s about more than just shameless kowtowing.

“Possibly the most striking thing about The Kite Runner, opening Friday, is that the film’s lead characters are all Muslims, but not one of them is a terrorist, convenience store owner, cab driver or woman wearing an all-enclosing burqa.” — from a 12.12.07 Newsday article by Lewis Beale.

A “Lunch with David” interview with Control‘s Sam Riley, posted on 12.10, was live today but went dead this evening. Let’s forget it, shall we?

There Will Be Blood “becomes an increasingly violent (and comical) struggle in which each man humiliates the other, leading to the murderous final scene, which gushes as far over the top as one of Daniel [Plainview]’s wells. The scene is a mistake, but I think I know why it happened.

“[Paul Thomas] Anderson started out as an independent filmmaker, with Hard Eight (’96) and Boogie Nights (’97). In Blood, he has taken on central American themes and established a style of prodigious grandeur. Yet some part of him must have rebelled against canonization. The last scene is a blast of defiance — or perhaps of despair. But, like almost everything else in the movie, it’s astonishing.” — from David Denby‘s review in teh 12.17 New Yorker.

After the fifth or sixth Best Supporting Actress critics award for Amy Ryan came in, I began to shake my head. Then I threw up my hands. Scratch a critics awards group and they’ll all feign ignorance or indifference about the choices of the other groups, but c’mon…every last critic in the U.S. of A. group is in love with a vivid but broad caricature of a reprehensible low-life? AmyRyanAmyRyanAmyRyanAmyRyan, etc.

Congratulations to the San Francisco Film Critics Circle for having the character and conviction to name Andrew Dominik‘s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford as their Best Picture of 2007. As opposed to, for example, the divided Chicago Film Critics who put up Zodiac‘s David Fincher as a Best Director contender but lacked the intestinal fortitude to nominate Zodiac — a film that deserves to be honored as much if not more than any other ’07 film — for Best Picture.

I’m sorry, but I have trouble responding positively to beautiful actresses like Eva Mendes who insist on wearing mascara and eyeliner. I look at this PETA ad and all I see is the Cleopatra eye makeup and I say to myself, “Why?”

Because his brilliant, blunt-mouthed, smart-ass CIA character in Charlie Wilson’s War is highly amusing, Philip Seymour Hoffman is considered a slam-dunk Best Supporting Actor nominee. But Toby Kebbell, a 25 year-old British actor, does the exact same routine in Control — i.e., playing a brilliant, blunt-mouthed, smart-ass band manager named Rob Gretton — and nobody has said jack squat.

(far left) Toby Kebbell as Rob Gretton in Anton Corbijn’s Control

Gebbell’s version is arguably more entertaining than Hoffman’s, and he delivers a bit more humanity and soul in the process…and Hollywood handicappers haven’t so much as mentioned the guy. So I’m mentioning him. Here’s an mp3 clip of Kebbell doing his here-I-am bit with the Joy Division members.

I should have brought up Gebbell a couple of months ago, not that anyone would have paid the slightest attention. I admit he’s got a dorky-sounding name that’s hard to remember (I had to check his IMDB page three times to get it straight), and it should be spelled like “pebble” instead of “Gebbell.” Perhaps with the Control screeners finally going out…who knows? At least Kebbell will get some work out of it. Maybe.

With nearly everyone admitting that the WGA strike is going to last a good while (i.e., into March or beyond, some say), producers of the Oscar and Golden Globe telecasts need to admit to reality, which is that they’ll be putting on shows that are going to sound, patter-wise, a lot worse than usual because there won’t be any “written” material to work with. Unless, of course, the WGA grants a variance and allows union writers to bang out the usual usual. Which they won’t, of course. (Why make it easier for the producers to promote product?) In which case host Jon Stewart will have to shun any input from his writing team and do all the writing himself…correct? The monologues, the intros, the reaction quips, etc. A tough situation for any performer, but Stewart especially.