Day: April 16, 2008

Do Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania or Indiana care about the political endorsements of celebrities — even working-class icons like Bruce Springsteen? I wonder. Springsteen will probably stage a bunch of concerts- slash-Obama rallies in the fall. He did this for Kerry in ’04, of course, and look what happened. Maybe he has a certain influence. Not with the serious Pennsylvania dumbasses (i.e., the racist flannel-shirt rubes in the “Alabama” sections of the state) but maybe with the 50-something middle-classers who bought his records and cassettes in the ’70s and ’80s.

“At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships,” Springsteen said on his website. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man’s life and vision, so well described in his excellent book, Dreams From My Father, often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment.”

I was planning to catch the Pennsylvania Clinton-Obama debate at 5 pm before going to an 8 pm screening. Until I realized, that is, that the jerks running ABC are delaying the broadcast until 8 pm Pacific, and not allowing any replays until tomorrow morning. “We have an obligation to our West Coast affiliates,” an ABC spokesperson said, “to not make chunks of the debate available until their viewers have had a chance to see them.” Asshole!
The ABC exec who made this decision, whom I’ll wager is in his mid to late 50s (if not older), needs to be reminded that this is not 1997. The news-and-information cycle waits for no one. Everything is immediate and now and no older than five or ten minutes ago. It obviously doesn’t get it at all to have to wait to see something these days because of something as meaningless as a time zone. Am I understanding correctly that there won’t even be a late-night re-airing on ABC?

What’s happened to Ewan McGregor over the last five or six years? It’s almost as his soul was poisoned by playing Obi Wan Kenobi three times for George Lucas (The Phantom Menace in ’99, Attack of the Clones in ’02, Revenge of the Sith in ’05). He’s become Mr. Paycheck — a young Robert De Niro who will make any questionable or lackluster film as long as the money’s right or it fits his schedule. Or maybe he just has terrible taste.

Michelle Williams, Ewan McGregor in Deception

I only know that he used to be this authentic street guy with a kind of glow around his head, and now he’s lost it because he’s made too many slick or inconsequential films.
The down cycle seemed to begin in ’02 with Down With Love, Young Adam and Big Fish — three problem movies in a row. Then came the final Star Wars film followed by Michael Bay‘s The Island (a tank), Stay (a stiff), Stormbreaker (didn’t see it), Scenes of a Sexual Nature (ditto) and Miss Potter (minor film, quick burnout). Granted, his performance in Woody Allen‘s Cassandra’s Dream was strong and affecting but then he did Incendiary (fizzled at Sundance, no distrib deal) and now Deception.
MacGregor was in a near-flawless groove from Trainspotting (’96 — the scene where he dove into that disgusting toilet was probably his career peak) to Moulin Rouge and Black Hawk Down (both ’01). Then the Gods began to turn against him. I remember reading a remark after Young Adam came out that “an indie movie isn’t a full-boat indie movie unless it has Ewan dropping trou.” I said to myself right then and there, “People are starting to think less of him. His Trainspotting aura is dissipating.”

How barnyard dumb do you have to be to want to see Deception (20th Century Fox, 4.25)? The trailer tells you it’s almost certainly a cynical, mechanical, one-note thriller. Hugh Jackman plays the Michael Douglas/Gordon Gekko figure — the well-dressed, impeccably mannered skunk from hell. Ewan McGregor plays the innocent but randy dork and Michelle Williams plays… I can’t tell exactly, but if her role amounts to anything more than just “the girl” I’ll be surprised. Hold your nose, make the movie, deposit the check and move on.

If the trailer doesn’t convince you it’s a must-to-avoid, 20th Century Fox’s decision to open Deception without any critics screenings should seal the deal. Except the under-30 idiot target demo never reads reviews anyway so it doesn’t matter.
Which group of moviegoers are more clueless — those definitely planning to see Deception no matter what, or those determined to see Jon Avnet and Al Pacino‘s 88 Minutes this Friday? Or are they the same demo?
The Deception trailer also tells you the film’s been very well shot, which is no surprise given that it’s the work of the renowned dp Dante Spinotti (Public Enemies, Wonder Boys, The Insider, L.A. Confidential, Heat).

Forgetting Sarah Marshall‘s Jason Segel “is a big guy, handsome in a slightly sappy way,” New Yorker critic David Denby observes. In a bygone age, a major New York critic calling an actor “slightly sappy” might have condemned him to supporting actor status or even obscurity, but in today’s movie-comedy world, aesthetically reconfigured by producer Judd Apatow, this may not be the case.

(l. to .r.) Mila Kunis, Jason Segel, Russell Brand and Kristen Bell (illustration: Hope Gangloff)

“He’s naked at the beginning of the movie, when Sarah arrives home to dump him, and naked at the very end of it. Peter is incapable of concealing anything; he has no vanity, but he’s a bit of a lazy boy, potatoing on the couch in Los Angeles when he’s not working. Segel is extremely gentle, and his puzzlement has comic possibilities, but he’s not quite an actor yet. He loses focus; his jaw goes slack, and his eyes register bewilderment.
“In Hawaii, Peter is humiliated a lot: he falls off a cliff, he can’t stand up on a surfboard, and so on. All this ineptitude is supposed to be endearing, but moviegoers want a romantic hero with some sex appeal and some strength, and Segel’s harmless routine wears us out.
“Part of the problem is that his director, Nicholas Stoller, doesn’t shape the scenes decisively. He abandons Segel and doesn’t get a clearly defined performance out of Kristen Bell (from TV’s Veronica Mars and Heroes). She’s short and blond, with a very bright smile, and she comes off as hard-edged and self-centered in some scenes and truthful in others, and we never get a bead on her. It’s not hard, it turns out, to forget Sarah Marshall. The problem is remembering her.”

If anyone doubts yesterday’s item about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull being 140 minutes plus, here’s a video clip (posted Sunday, 4.13) of composer John Williams saying the film is “seven reels long, and each reel is 20 minutes.”

After being told by Marilyn Monroe authority Mark Bellinghaus to expect an article that debunks the 1950s stag film story that ran in Monday’s (4.14) New York Post, the piece has turned up on Defamer.

Whatever. The gist is that the film is a fake. The story says that claims about the alleged Monroe sex film by Keya Morgan, the Manhattan-based memorabilia collector who claims to have brokered the sale of the 15-minute blowjob reel, are “outrageous.” The piece reports that Morgan “has thus far refused to disclose either the names of either the seller or buyer of the tape; additionally, he has not been able to provide evidence that this alleged sale even occurred.”
Defamer‘s Mark Graham worked with Bellinghaus, Ernest W. Cunningham (author of “The Ultimate Marilyn”) and freelance journalist Jennifer J. Dickinson to put together the debunk piece. Nobody claims to have seen the disputed stag film (the buyer being anonymous and apparently unreachable) but whoever the performer is, it’s not and never was Marilyn Monroe, according to assertions.

Read more