I’ve “known” (i.e., been phone-chatting with) director Rob Cohen since the early ’90s, and have always found him bright, affable, witty, open. He’s a Harvard University grad and a very good gabber. I remember what a terrific job he did seven years ago on The Fast and The Furious, and how he recaptured that old Sam Arkoff-ian, American International Pictures B-movie vibe, and particularly how he fought to end it on a note of justice rather than legality.

But everything Coen has done since has been (and it pains me to say this) either cheesy or bloated or forced or otherwise problematic. And now comes his latest, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which, to go by a couple of friends who’ve seen it and particularly by the word of Variety critic Todd McCarthy, looks like a piece of shit. T
The cretins, I’m sure, will pay to see the new Mummy movie in droves anyway. It is immaterial to me and mine whether financial profit ensues. If you haven’t made a movie with genuine spirit and spunk and a semblance of originality, you’ve dishonored the movie gods and deserve to be punished.
Here‘s a January ’07 assessment about how and why Cohen got the Mummy job some eighteen months ago. It’s a tough world out there with the once-respectable Universal churning one groaner after another in recent months and loathsome hacks like Stephen Sommers always ready and eager to soil and pollute. I’m sorry things are like this. I feel badly for everyone, truly. I would rather feel love than vent hate.
Here‘s an excerpt from an interview piece I ran about Cohen and The Fast and the Furious back in ’01, when I was writing for Reel.com:
“One of things I liked best about TFatF is its ending. It feels earned, justified, ‘right.’ In my book, a good ending is at least 50% of the game. I won’t spoil Cohen’s finale, but it involves a cop letting a criminal slide because friendship and mutual respect have developed between them over the course of the film.

“The last two lines before the film goes to credits are ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ and ‘I owed you a ten-second car.’ As endings go, it’s damn near perfect. I was somewhere between 75% and 80% positive on the film before it happened. Afterwards, I was totally sold.
“Cohen says, ‘There was a lot of nervousness from Universal execs about [the ending], and I had to fight for it. One thing I said is that the honor among these characters is what’s going to work on a heart level. There’s a difference between legality and justice…and we opted for justice. We went out on a note of honor.”
“The fact that it ends without the bad guy getting cuffed or killed is a certifiable plus for the sheer fact of its unusualness. ‘Some of the best movies end with a delicious ambiguity,’ Cohen explains. ‘Ending it this way was the perfect thing…it was like cutting a diamond.
“I knew what I was doing [with this film],” says Cohen. “I was after a B-movie with style and heart about a world and a subculture that is true to the world and not some rainbow-coalition Gap ad. My greatest hope was that a multi-ethnic audience would show up…and that’s what happened last weekend. I was happier that this happened, more than the $40 million…but I’ve gotta tell you, this is one fucking happy day.”
See what I mean? Cohen is no dummy. He gets it and then some. He understands that movies are nothing without the internals. Then why has the poor guy been out of the groove since ’01, or at least not found one as good or satisfying? It’sd puzzling.
The IMDB says that Cohen’s next film, which he’ll direct and produce, may be King of the Nudies, a dramedy based on the life of Russ Meyer. That sounds like a good ‘un. Here’s hoping.

N.Y. Daily News columnists Rush & Molloy went with a story today about a $250 million lawsuit against Scientology bigwigs (including Tom Cruise), filed by ex-church member Peter Letterese over harassment tactics used against him when he resigned. The catchy aspect is that Letterese is using the RICO statute as a weapon. As R & M explain, he’s “calling the church a ‘crime syndicate‘ and wants it broken up under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization law, just as the feds have broken up Mafia families.”

Uploaded 14 days ago on Flickr, forwarded last night by Oregonian critic Shawn Levy. “This is an actual photo — not Photoshopped — of a second-run Portland movie theater, the Cinemagic, changing its marquee over from Hancock to TDK. As the fellow who sent it to me said, ‘Sometimes it’s better to work right to left.'”

The Journal Sentinel‘s Duane Dudek reported yesterday that Woody Allen‘s next film, the Larry David-Evan Rachel Wood relationship thing, will be called Whatever Works. Allen called it a “a blackish comedy.” I think it’s fair to say that the title doesn’t imply this in the slightest. Generically speaking, of course.

In a piece that’s largely about Dorothy Fadiman‘s Stealing America: Vote By Vote (opening Friday at NYC’s Quad Cinemas and spreading out in August), Politico‘s Jeffrey Ressner quotes Ion Sancho, a Florida-based election supervisor who was involved in the Florida recount situation during the 2000 presidential race, as saying that Pennsylvania and Indiana are expected to be “problem areas” (i.e., states with potential incidents of vote fraud) in the coming November election.
“Pennsylvania and Indiana are jurisdictions with partisan election administrations, and that’s one of the things that the film tries to illustrate,” Sancho tells Ressner. There is a particular concern about an Indiana law that requires voters to show government-issued photo identification. “Senior citizens, young people, low-income and minority voters often lack photo IDs and, as a result, they may potentially be disenfranchised,” Sancho says.

After seeing and loving Tropic Thunder I figured Pineapple Express (which opens one week before Thunder, on 8.6) couldn’t be quite as funny, despite the many months of advance praise. I trusted the buzz about James Franco being a revelation, but that “meh” Variety review by Justin Chang lowered the expectation factor a notch or two. I finally saw it last Monday night at the Grove, in any event, and about 20 or 30 minutes in I said to myself, “Wow, this is a wee bit funnier than Ben Stiller‘s movie.”

One reason is that Pineapple Express is a classic Cheech-and-Chong-meet- Laurel-and-Hardy stoner comedy. Thunder has a flaky-surreal, stoned-in-Vietnam weirdness thing going on, but Pineapple Express is just funny-funny in a character-chemistry way, although it takes a weirdly violent detour over the last half hour or so. They’re both great rides but their funny bones have different DNA.
The reason for the infectious Pineapple humor is the dumb rapport between Franco’s Saul, a low-rent pot dealer, and Seth Rogen‘s Dale Denton, a 25 year-old joint-sucking process server who’s reasonably bright but is also fairly silly and clueless at times, especially when the heat’s on. The best parts of this film are simply about Rogen and Franco talking to each other in a room. Their back-and-forths are beautifully acted. Franco plays the sweet, not-educated, not-very-bright Stan Laurel character and Seth Rogen does the blustery, somewhat more assertive but almost-as-clueless Oliver Hardy thing. Some of their scenes together are inspired. I was levitating out of my seat.
I also love how even the bad guys in this film (i.e., big-time drug dealers and their gun-toting goons) are given quirks, personalities, back-stories, odd traits and whatnot. Everybody has a bit of a story to tell and some weirdness to spread around.
I have to split for the afternoon, but I’ll have more to say about Pineapple Express over the coming days. It’s easily the best Judd Apatow-produced comedy since Superbad. It almost erased my memories of Jason Siegel‘s jiggly man-boobs in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. If it’s legit to suggest Robert Downey, Jr.’s performance in Tropic Thunder is Oscar-worthy (and I do feel that way), it also has to be cool to talk about Franco in the same light. As a Best Supporting Actor contender, I mean. The man is dead perfect in the role. It’s easily the best thing he’s done since that TNT James Dean biopic…what was that, seven years ago?
I was interviewed Monday morning by a Washington Post writer about stoner comedies, and today she wrote back to ask my feelings about Pineapple Express. “The first three quarters makes for a bona fide classic — I would go so far as to say legendary — stoner comedy,” I wrote back.

Due respect to The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil, but I don’t think it’s fair to characterize an argument or miscommunication between Frozen River star Melissa Leo and first-time director Courtney Hunt as evidence of Leo having had a “diva fit.” It’s fine to argue, misread, blow off a little steam. If above-the- liners don’t argue now and then during a shoot it’s probably an indication that the film will be mediocre.

O’Neil’s ire was triggered by Leo’s account of the argument in a q & a between herself and Us critic Thelma Adams in this 7.29 Huffington Post-ing. I think Tom, good fellow that he is, has made a mountain out of a molehill. I’m sorry, but there will be no dinging Melissa Leo on this site about anything. She’s too talented, too phenomenal, too world-class.

With the exception of Heath Ledger‘s performance, which they love, Lorenzo Semple, Jr., and Marcia Nasatir, a.k.a. the “Real Geezers,” have come down pretty hard on Chris Nolan‘s mega-hit. “There seems to be an attempt to say we’re living in some kind of fascist state,” says Nasatir. “The Joker seems to rule supreme the same way Osama bin Laden does…I think the director intended it to remind us of what happened to the twin towers…[but] the reason I think it’s such a success, tragically, is because of the death of Heath Ledger.”

“So I got back to my apartment and I had an epiphany,” Steve Guttenberg says to the N.Y. Observer‘s Spencer Morgan in his second hangin’-with-the-Goot column.
Morgan explains that Guttenberg had been reading Roman history about “how Mark Antony had accidentally led a ship carrying 150 soldiers to an island where they found, to their surprise, 500 enemy soldiers. But instead of allowing his men to flee, Antony burned the ship. And then they won because they had to.
“So I sat on my bed, and across from me was my pile of meaningless phone numbers of women that I’ve met,” he said. “This is 4 in the morning, Wayne Dyer and everybody says 4 in the morning is the time when the world is quietest and it’s super-spiritual — and I said, `The only way I’m going to meet terrific women [is] I have to burn the ship.’ So I took this pile of numbers and I went to the incinerator and I blessed all the women and asked them for my soul back. And I blessed it and kissed it, and I threw it down the incinerator.”
That’s a pretty good epiphany — seriously. I can count on less than five fingers the times that I’ve willingly burned the ship in order to free myself from the past and move forward unencumbered. Say what you will about Guttenberg, but these are words of wisdom.
Wait…Guttenberg also says this to Morgan: “A poet said, `Men are dumb, women are evil.’ And I think that’s partially true. I’m not a commitment-phobe — I’ve had girlfriends — but I am weary of the power of women.”
Wells to Guttenberg: What you really mean is, you can’t handle the mentality of smart, shrewd, powerful women who are A-plusses, As and A-minuses. If beautiful women who have power and pizazz make you weary and/or bring you down, then you’re going to have to accept the idea of partnering with a B or a B-minus. The best women in the world come from that group. That or you’re doomed to end up with a hot bimbo, which always leads to thoughts of suicide sooner or later.

Update: I stilll say that the new John McCain ad suggests that Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, who represent two-thirds of the dumbest, emptiest and most repulsive celebrity trifecta in the history of western civilization, are endorsing the trashing of Barack Obama. Others are saying the ad equates their shallow celebrity status with Obama’s, but that is not what this ad implies. At the very least the ad is ambiguous enough to suggest that Spears and Hilton (both of whom are known or believed to be conservative-minded) are in cahoots with the McCain campaign. Here’s the link to the official website.

I don’t know if Spears is narrating or not (doesn’t sound like her) but it’s definitely not Hilton. Anyway, the visuals are all of Obama and the narration goes like this: “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead? With gas prices soaring, Barack Obama says no offshore drilling? And says he’ll raise taxes on [something]-tricity? Higher taxes, more foreign oil — that‘s the real Obama.”
A friend just called to suggest that the ad equates Obama’s celebrity with the legendary shallowness of Hilton and Spears. In other words, it’s trashing these two along with Obama. That wasn’t my impression at all, but to each his own. Throwing in clips of Spears and Hilton and then having a young-sounding female read the narration clearly implies they’re endorsing the ad’s negative Obama assessment

Prostitute intrigues are fairly popular these days among younger cable viewers, to judge by the existence of Showtime’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl, HBO and Darren Star‘s forthcoming Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, Rod Lurie‘s Hillary Jones (a Showtime drama “about a woman who works as a vice cop in Los Angeles during the week and as a legal prostitute in Nevada during the weekend”) and the recent talk about Ashley Dupre (the service-provider of former New York governor Eliot Spitzer) getting some kind of a reality TV deal.
And so The Frisky‘s “Amelia” has taken this recent flurry of activity to remind that playing a prostitute almost always works out in terms of Oscars, Oscar nominations and/or glowing reviews.