Detective: I was just reading your play. I liked a lot of it. I don’t like the main character though. This Marine. Sounds like a real jellyfish. I guess you’re supposed to like him because he’s against the Marine Corp. S’that it?

Suspect: Something like that.

Detective: Why doesn’t he do something? I mean, go over the hill, refuse an order…? I couldn’t sympathize with a character like that.

Suspect: Not everyone did.

Detective: The Marine in the play, that supposed to be you?

Suspect: No.

Detective: Maybe a little?

Suspect: Maybe on some level.

Detective: You know what I think? On some level? I think you’re the kind of wise chickenshit cocksucker who writes a tearjerk play against the Marines then smuggles a shitload of heroin into this country.

Life is hard and then you die, and we’re all going to get there. Most of us push it away in our heads (I certainly do), and yet sometimes it seeps through anyway. And now 62 year-old Farrah Fawcett has decided to become an agent of one of these intrusions. A cancer sufferer since ’06 and apparently not far from the end, she and producer/friend Alana Stewart have shot a two-hour video diary that will be broadcast on NBC on Friday, 5.15, from 9 to 11 pm. It’s called Farrah’s Story.

I’m not very plugged in with network TV publicists, but I’m going to try to get hold of a screener before I leave for France on Monday. I’m not looking forward to all of the calls I’m going to have to make and all the blah-blah I’ll have to deal with, but it’ll be worth it. I can’t say I’m looking forward to watching it, but I want to see it.

“As much as I would have liked to have kept my cancer private,” Fawcett has said in a 5.7 piece by People‘s Champ Clark, “I now realize that I have a certain responsibility to those who are fighting their own fights and may be able to benefit from learning about mine.”

Primarily shot by Stewart and narrated by Fawcett, the doc tracks her experience with cancer treatments in the U.S. and Germany over the last two or three years, and how she’s coped and dealt with it on various levels. The doc includes appearances by Fawcett’s longtime partner Ryan O’Neal, her Charlie’s Angels co-stars Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson, her father Jim Fawcett and her doctors.

“Another visitor has been Fawcett and O’Neal’s son Redmond, who’s [now] behind bars for a drug-related probation violation,” writes Clark. “On April 25 he was allowed three hours at home with his mother to say what might be his final goodbye. In his jail-issued jumpsuit and in shackles, Redmond is seen in the NBC documentary climbing into his sleeping mother’s bed and crying. ‘Oh my gosh, my gosh,’ he says as he hugs the frail figure next to him. ‘Oh, my gosh.'”

Envelope columnist Scott Feinberg interviewed Girlfriend Experience star Sasha Grey six and a half days ago — Thursday, 4.30 — at the Edie and Lew Wasserman Cinematheque on the Brandeis University campus. It’s a fairly intriguing piece. Feinberg is polite and respectful but professionally direct at certain points in the chat. Grey comes off as shrewd, mature, intelligent and — sorry — faintly tragic. Because she works in an icky industry filled with untalented and under-educated people, and because no porn star has ever walked away from it intact.

“Early word of Grey’s impending visit set the city of Boston abuzz,” Feinberg writes, “and — as we learned via blogs, Twitter, talk radio and newspaper columns — she is not someone who engenders mild feelings.

“Some said they had never before heard of or seen her; others said they had heard and seen a lot of her. Some said they vehemently disapproved of what she did for a living; others said they couldn’t get enough of her work. Some were outraged that a prestigious university would invite her to visit its campus and that a respected publication would want to interview her; others — especially the 300 students who managed to snag a ticket to the event — were just plain happy that we did.

“So why did we? Well, to clear things up, for two main reasons: (1) The Girlfriend Experience is a significant film, and (2) Grey is, in her own way, a significant filmmaker.”

Has anyone ever watched any of Grey’s films? I finally did last weekend, for a bit. As long as I could stand it, I mean. There’s really only one word for what I saw — ugly.

Not to finish on an argumentative note, but why did it take the L.A. Times tecchies six days to post this? Why didn’t they have it up the next day or by last weekend, or at least by last Monday? Steven Soderbergh‘s film has been on-demand since last weekend but it doesn’t open until 5.22 so the piece wasn’t delayed to coincide with a weekend opening.

I’ll tell you why. Because the L.A. Times tecchies are notoriously slow and bureaucratic when it comes to getting things done. (Staffers and freelancers routinely groan and roll their eyes about their shortcomings — trust me.) And, I suspect, because they prefer not to work on weekends. And when they come to work on Monday it takes them a long while to get rolling. Because they spend huge portions of their work days in meetings.

Web reporting has to turn around within hours, or certainly within a day. The L.A. Times just doesn’t get it. They’re competing in a 24/7 web world, but they’re still behaving in some ways like print.

And why is the video so pixellated and awful looking? Did the guy at Brandeis shoot this on a cell phone? And why do the Times tecchies make it difficult to grab a video embed code? Why do they make you click on “Page Source” and scroll down and scrounge around for the code?

Rewind: After catching The Girlfriend Experience at Sundance on 1.20, I wrote that “it smacks of right-now verite, is smartly written and very well made. (And recently shot also with all kinds of references to the Obama-McCain race and the economic meltdown.)

“No one would call it the stuff of high Shakespearean drama, but I wasn’t bored for a second. It’s smallish and low-key like Soderbergh’s Bubble but set in Manhattan and focusing on a very pretty upscale prostitute and the various men in her life — boyfriend, journalist, sleazy erotic website editor, high-rollers looking to buy her favors, etc.

“I presume that everyone reading this knows that Soderbergh is far too dry, ironic and circumspect to be a provider of hot sex scenes or even mildly suggestive ones (as in, say, Alan Resnais‘ Hiroshima Mon Amour). He maintains a cool distance in this regard at all times, which is welcome considering the appearance of Grey’s clients. Some of them, I mean. Two or three inspired a prayer from yours truly: ‘Please, God, I don’t want to see any middle-aged butt cheeks or bloated stomachs or funny-looking feet.’

“Soderbergh frames most of The Girlfriend Experience with static medium and long shots — there are almost no close-ups. He said during the q & a that the photography in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert was an influence.

“Grey, a real-life porn star, isn’t as much of an actress as she could be. Scene after scene requites her to keep it all locked inside, and she’s good at that. I hate to say this because it makes me sound small, but it seems fair since Frey is presenting herself as an object of desire: her feet are too big.

“Grey’s live-in boyfriend is played by 30 year-old Chris Santos, who delivers reasonably well in a somewhat layered and mildly challenging role.

“I didn’t know what the title meant until I looked at The Girlfriend Experience IMDB page. A trivia notes posting says that ‘a call girl advertising the provision of a girlfriend experience is implying that she provides deep French kissing, full service intercourse with protection, and oral sex without protection.’

“This reminded me of the services that Ashley Alexandra Dupree allegedly provided (or were sought out by) former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.”

Yesterday afternoon Nikki Finke tore into Sony Pictures Classics’ Michael Barker and Tom Bernard, calling their operation “clueless about getting attention for itself and even its Oscar-nominated films for years.” Today Movieline‘s Stu Van Airsdale zinged her back on Barker and Bernard’s behalf, and quoted three responders on Nikki’s site who had done the same.

I met director Marc Rocco 14 years ago during post-production on Murder in the First. Rod Lurie provided the introduction, as I recall. (Lurie’s current producing partner Mark Frydman was a Murder producer.) I honestly never thought that Murder in the First was all that great a film, and a certain dialogue error and one or two technical ones I noticed told me that Rocco probably wasn’t going to turn into Michael Mann. Anyway, the poor guy has been found dead. I’m very sorry all around. Kris Tapley has done the reporting.

Holmes: No, no. I’m not criticizing. Obviously you work out. You look good, man. Really.

Watson: Thank you.

Holmes: How’s that chick I saw you with the other night?

Watson: Which one?

Holmes: Dark eyes. Italian-looking. Nice ass.

Watson: Ramona.

Holmes: Right, Ramona. You good with her?

From a 5.6 USA Today spread; I couldn’t figure how to copy them so I borrowed pic from Sasha Stone’s Awards Daily.

Watson: Possibly. I think so. One day at a time and all that. But sure, she’s lovely. (Two beats.) Why?

Holmes: No reason.

Watson: No, really. Why?

Holmes: She’s a sweet girl. Smart. Good for you.

Watson: Christ. You’re thinking about taking a poke.

Holmes: Me?

Watson: You fucking hound. It’s so fucking obvious.

Holmes: I don’t do that, dude. You’re my friend. And that’s where it stays.

Watson: Wow!

Holmes: Where are you getting this?

When’s the last time that a film proclaimed the creator, the title and the top star on a single “card” in the opening credit sequence? This hasn’t been done since the early to mid 1930s, at the latest. The title card in this three-minute clips says “Francis Coppola’s TETRO starring Vincent Gallo.”

“Neither disastrous misfire nor bold reinvention, J.J. Abrams‘ Star Trek ultimately works as an entertaining diversion and little more. For that reason alone, it might strike some as a success in the face of impossible expectations. But it’s really just an average accomplishment. The movie simultaneously reveals Abrams’s directorial strengths and weaknesses: He can craft sensational action sequences and tell an immersive story, but not at the same time. As a result, Star Trek soars for 45 minutes before devolving into a familiar spectacle, albeit an impressive one.” — from Eric Kohn‘s recently-posted review on movingpicturesmagazine.com.

Last January I asked why the promise of Ryan Reynolds — i.e., that he might one day become the next Robert Redford — didn’t seem to be happening. And yet it could, I thought at the time. Reynolds has the looks, some decent chops and a certain planted quality that could put him into a special realm (perceptually, at least) if he were to land the right parts.

But now that Reynolds has been announced to star in his own Deadpool movie in another 20th Century Fox X-Men spinoff, I think that’s all she wrote. Reynolds’ upgrade into classic movie star status isn’t going to happen. Because this feels like a low-rent move. Box-office aside, Wolverine has weakened the X-Men brand and you just know (or strongly suspect) that a Deadpool film will almost certainly bring about further diminishment

Reynolds isn’t shifting into the big-time, I wrote, because “he’s basically a faux star — an agreeable lightweight lacking serious hunger and possibly lacking the necessary gravitas — trying to launch himself (or at least make it work in a limited way or…you know, hang on) in a degraded environment. He seems to be doing all he can to make it happen — engage, excite, arouse — but it’s just not coalescing.”

This poster is amiable and easy, but Larry David just pantomining the title…I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like enough. Shouldn’t poster art crank up the intrigue levels a tad more? Shouldn’t it add context and counterpoint? I’m asking.

Whatever Works is “partly stiff and unconvincing and perhaps a bit too mean-spirited, even for a film about a bitter misanthrope,” I wrote on 4.22. “And yet it turns around and goes easy at the end, which I oddly liked and didn’t like at the same time. It sure as hell isn’t about realism, and yet the fakeness of Whatever Works is pleasing. And I was often delighted that the people-are-no-damn-good humor is as scalding as it is.”

Senior Sundance Film Festival programmer Trevor Groth is taking John Cooper‘s gig as director of programming for the Sundance Film Festival, effective immediately. The word around the campfire had been that both Cooper and Groth were trying to land the top Sundance job in the wake of Gilmore’s departure, although it always seemed a fait accompli to me that Cooper would be named successor, by virtue of seniority. Groth will hang onto his other job as Artistic Director for the CineVegas Film Festival, which he’s been doing since ’02.