Day: April 28, 2009

Steven Soderbergh‘s The Girlfriend Experience (Magnolia, 5.22) had its big Tribeca Film Festival showing last night. It’s a superbly made film about (a) Soderbergh’s view of himself as an artist dealing with a series of “Johns,” and (b) the anxious psychological currents created by collapse of the U.S. economy in the fall of ’08. The after-party was at 675 Bar (675 Hudson, 9th Ave and 13th St.), a basement-level place that used to be an S & M bar in the ’70s and was a hospital in the Civil War days.

Tony Gilroy, Girlfriend Experience costar Mark Jacobson.

Soderbergh and Sasha Grey attended; ditto costars Glenn Kenny and Mark Jacobson. The great Tony Gilroy (Duplicity, Michael Clayton) stood near the bar for most of the evening. Extremely bright and seasoned fellow — one of the best in the industry. Great food, delicious drinks, superb film, classy crowd, beautiful women.

Outside lower Manhattan’s BMCC theatre just before the end of tonight’s Girlfriend Experience screening.

(l. to r.) Roger Friedman, Girlfriend Experience director Steven Soderbergh, Gilroy at the after-party.

Girlfriend Experience star Sasha Grey.

20th Century Fox has nailed down Oliver Stone to direct a sequel to his 1987 hit Wall Street, which was called Money Never Sleeps when Stephen Schiff wrote the original script. Variety‘s Michael Fleming says Shia LaBeouf is negotiating to join Michael Douglas, who naturally will play the legendary Gordon “greed is good” Gekko. Allan Loeb (21) is credited in Fleming’s story as the writer, but my understanding is that he’s the rewrite/reshuffle/touch-up guy. Edward R. Pressman is producing.

Quoting from my 3.8.09 piece about this: “In February’s Conde Nast Portfolio Amy Wallace wrote about last year’s decision by 20th Century Fox to rewrite Schiff’s Money Never Sleeps, an allegedly sturdy Wall Street sequel with Michael Douglas again playing Gekko. Stephen Frears (The Queen) wanted to direct Schiff’s script and everything looked good.

“But after last fall’s financial collapse Fox decided Schiff’s script ‘suddenly felt out of touch,’ according to production co-prexy Alex Young, so they hired Loeb to make it more reflective of today’s meltdown vibe.”

There are only two performances by film critics (i.e.,in which they play characters and not themselves) that I’ve really liked — Leonard Harris as Sen. Palantine in Taxi Driver, and Some Came Running‘s Glenn Kenny as a predatory porn website manager in Steven Soderbergh ‘s The Girlfriend Experience, which screens tonight at the Tribeca Film Festival. (It just hit me that I forgot to attend the round-table interviews for this earlier today — brilliant! The story of my life.)

The dirty little secret of Sony Home Video’s recently-released Nickelodeon DVD is that neither of the two versions — the original color release plus the new monochrome re-do from the hand of director Peter Bogdanovich and Sony restoration guru Grover Crisp — are very attractive.

Snap of monochrome Nickelodeon as it appears on my 42-inch plasma.

Okay, the black-and-white version looks a bit crisper and more distinctive at times, but at other times it seems a wee bit murky and shadowy. Look at any old-time black and white film and you’ll notice how carefully lit everything is; how every last detail is crisp and precise and easy to eyeball. The black-and-white Nickelodeon doesn’t have this quality. It lacks that silver-nitrate polish, and looks, in fact, like a color print that’s been adjusted down to monochrome, which is more or less what it is.

On top of which this recreation of old-time, pre-Birth of the Nation Hollywood filmmaking looks wrong in a 16 x 9 aspect ratio. Bogdanovich asked for the remastering so the film would finally be seen in black and white (which is what he originally wanted when he first made it in ’75 or thereabouts) because it seems to blend with the era. But why didn’t he also push for a 1.33 to 1 aspect ratio, which is closer to how films appeared in the early days? If Bogdanovich had been a real stickler for mood and atmosphere he would have pushed for the even-boxier aspect ratio of silent films.

He shot Nickelodeon at a much taller aspect ratio anyway with information cropped off at the top and bottom; you can tell this right away from the crammed-into-a-small-space Columbia logo at the beginning.

In Nothing But The Truth, director-writer Rod Lurie “has created female protagonists strong and self-aware enough to question sexism and hypocrisy. He’s created two of the most fascinating female movie characters to hit screens in a long while,” says Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday in a 4.28 review. “And they’ve been brought to life by two gifted actresses — Kate Beckinsale and Vera Farmiga — each working at the top of her game.

“Every once in a while, for reasons as random as a Hollywood executive’s taste or an economic meltdown, a perfectly decent movie slips through the cracks, never receives a theatrical release and is relegated to the purgatory called straight-to-DVD.

“Some worthwhile cinematic gems have experienced such a fate (see Idiocracy and SherryBaby), and today we can add another one to the list. Nothing but the Truth, a taut political thriller, takes some cues from recent events, adds a dash of over-the-top melodrama and comes up with a crafty little pretzel of a movie, given added bite thanks to careermaking performances from Beckinsale and Farmiga.

“Lurie has gotten better and better over the years, and with Nothing but the Truth he’s made the best film of his career, winching the drama steadily tighter as the notion of power and its abuse becomes more murky. He stages a shocking mid-point murder with jolting, ruthless finesse. But by far the most effective sequences of the film are those that feature Beckinsale and Farmiga going nose-to-nose as women trying (and failing) to find common ground.”

It’s my fault that Manhattan-based 20th Century Fox publicists didn’t invite me to the two Wolverine critic screenings happening today. I haven’t been aggressive enough about telling everyone I’m really and truly a Manhattanite. The first screening happened at 10 or 10:30 am; the next starts at 2 pm. I spoke to a critic who attended this morning’s showing and his initial response was (a) there’s too much Hugh Jackman and (b) it’s not as good as any of the three X-Men films (i.e., obviously including Brett Ratner‘s version).

A credible Australian critic wrote yesterday to say he’d “caught a screening of it last night here in Sydney and the bad buzz is spot-on. Clunky script, unfocused plotting, cheesy special effects and terrible production values. Nearly everything looks like a set and what doesn’t look like a set looks like CG. I thought it was Daredevil-bad — equal to or worse than X3. And I loved the first two X-Men films, especially the second one.

“Don’t get me started on the character design for Deadpool (the final villain who comes with all the mutants’ strengths and none of their weaknesses). I was really sad to see it turn out this way because I like [director] Gavin Hood, and because I think Hugh Jackman‘s great (i.e., still the best thing about the movie) and of course a lot of Aussies were involved. Anyway, not a fully formed reaction but just thought I’d pass it on.”

Senator Arlen Specter‘s switch to the Democratic party is obviously an enormous boon to President Barack Obama‘s legislative agenda. Presuming that Al Franken ‘s Minnesota Senate race victory will eventually be ratified, Specter’s vote will bring the Senate Democratic tally to 60, which will enable Dems to cold-cock any Republican filibusters that may arise in response to this or that legislative measure.

In a statement issued about 90 minutes ago, Specter said “he had concluded that his party had moved too far to the right, a fact demonstrated by the migration of 200,000 Pennsylvania Republicans to the Democratic Party,” says a N.Y. Times story that went up at 12:13 pm.

“‘I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” Specter said, acknowledging that his decision was certain to disappoint colleagues and supporters.” Specter will run as a Democrat in the 2010 Pennsylvania Senate race, and of course there’s the matter of his health, which hasn’t been perfect. But as long as Specter is fit and voting and plugging away, this is great news for Team Obama.

“The news shocked Senate Republicans, who had been hanging on to their ability to block legislation by a thread,” the Times story said. “Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, called an emergency meeting of party leaders who had no forewarning of Specter’s plans.”

I didn’t see any harm last Saturday in posting that fake 18-month-old YouTube trailer (originally posted on 10.19.07) for James Cameron‘s Avatar. Especially since I was bouncing off Michael Cieply‘s 4.25 N.Y. Times piece, which explicitly stated in paragraph #7 that “neither a trailer nor even a still photo” from the forthcoming 20th Century Fox film has been made available.

In short I made no claims about the trailer’s authenticity since I thought the lack of authenticity was obvious. At the same I liked the way the trailer plays and figured “where’s the harm?”

Except late yesterday the Wrap staff posted the same fake trailer with a headline that says “A Sneak Peek at Cameron’s Avatar” and a subhead that says “Watch the trailer for James Cameron’s highly anticipated sci-fi adventure, due out Dec. 18.” I figured they’d take it down right away after someone pointed out the error, but here it is the next day — Tuesday, 4.28 at 12:45 pm eastern — and it’s still up. Update: It’s 4:12 pm eastern, and The Wrap has finally posted a correction.

As gender transformations go, Larry Wachowski‘s — she’s now called Lana — hasn’t turned out too badly. Not drop-dead ravishing but moderately appealing in a no-big-deal, sitting-around-Starbucks sort of way. The shot on the right (posted by Us Weekly) is the first time I’ve seen Larry/Lana looking 100% female. If a sense of fulfillment and/or happiness is part of the dividend then it’s all to the good, right?

(l. to r.) Geeky heavy-cat Larry about a decade ago; transformative Larry about six years ago; Lana snapped at LAX on 4.17.

To be totally honest, if I saw Lana coming towards me in an airport corridor I’d probably say to myself, “Wow…no hips. And her feet are too big.” I need a kind of hippy-breasty hourglass thing or it doesn’t work for me. But she looks relatively normal. Just another hard-working girl.

Early last October it was revealed that Jim Sheridan‘s Brothers, a remake of Susanne Bier‘s original 2004 film, was being bumped by distributor MGM out of its 12.4.08 slot to either a late summer or fall ’09 release. Producer Mike DeLuca confirmed this and also told me that the plan was to take the domestic drama to the ’09 Cannes Film Festival.

Then I ran into Sheridan several weeks ago in Manhattan and he told me Cannes was a no-go, due to one or more of the actors (the costars are Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman) either being against promoting the film there or being unavailable for same. And then yesterday came the news that Ryan Kavanaugh‘s Relativity Media has cut a deal to supply Lionsgate with five films annually, and that Brothers will be the first to open under this new pact. Dave McNary‘s 4.27 Variety story said only that Sheridan’s film would be released “later this year,” which doesn’t sound like summer to me.

David Benioff‘s script is about a younger “bad” brother (Gyllenhaal) stepping into the familial shoes of his older “good” brother (Maguire) after the latter disappears during an enemy skirmish in Afghanistan. Portman plays the wife-mother whose loyalties shift, or at least adapt to new realities. Sam Shepard plays Gyllenhaal and Maguire’s dad.

I’m not saying IMDB reader comments can be trusted, but a few correspondents have claimed to have attended research screenings of Brothers in recent months and found it satisfying. This plus the quality of Bier’s film plus Sheridan’s pedigree tells me it must be at least a moderately decent if not better-than-decent film. But there’s always a reason when a movie gets repeatedly postponed and kicked around. Here’s hoping otherwise.

Yesterday morning a 747 Air Force One and an F16 fighter jet buzzed lower Manhattan at low altitude, causing thousands to fear the worst. The reason for the flyover was a photo op. This prompted Darth Mojo to write this morning that “not only was this stunt thoughtless and cruel — it was totally unnecessary. Hasn’t the government heard of CGI? Why didn’t the guys who wanted shots of a Manhattan flyover just call Hollywood? They can do fake planes like nobody’s business.”