Month: July 2009

“As of today all of the feedback has been so positive that it is hard to trust it,” Judd Apatow has written about responses to Funny People. “I hope people are telling me the truth,” he says, “but don’t feel obligated to go that way. If you like my film tell me in great detail what you liked about it, and if you don’t, please lie and tell me in even more detail what you loved about it so I believe your lie.

“And please don’t ask me what I am up to next. That’s a dead giveaway. I don’t think I could handle it.”

Apatow is presumably talking about junket whores. He should know that these guys never do anything but flatter when they’re in a room with talent. They’re gladhanders. Genuine honesty just isn’t in their DNA. And if it is, they’re certainly not going to let it out. What matters to them is one thing and one thing only, which is keeping their seat on the gravy train.

To hear it from Variety‘s Justin Chang, Nora Ephron‘s Julie & Julia is a “self-satisfied foodie fairy tale” that “feels middling, overstuffed and predigested.” He joins the crowd in noting that Meryl Streep‘s “delightfully daffy turn as Julia Child, the woman who demystified French cuisine for American households, is the freshest ingredient.” And yet the film disappoints, he says, by failing to offer “glorious culinary eye candy on the level of Babette’s Feast or Eat Drink Man Woman. Whatever auds make of Julie & Julia, it’s hard to imagine that Child herself, an unapologetic Francophile with one hell of an appetite, would have been much of a fan.”

Now that New Moon‘s Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner have told Movieline‘s Kyle Buchanan about their favorite movie scene, the issue I raised yesterday about Lautner is officially settled.

I’m sorry to blurt out a harsh thing but on top of his Beagle Boy boxer-dog nose the guy chose a boilerplate revenge-setup scene in Braveheart as his all-time fave. I’m sorry but that tears it. He sat down at the desk, picked up a pen, took the quiz and flunked.

Lautner’s favorite clip from Mel Gibson‘s Oscar-winning film is “like the worst scene,” he tells Buchanan, “but it’s at the very beginning when he sees his love die. That sets up the whole adventure where he’s going to fight for her. Just, like, the fire in his eyes when he sees that, and now he’s going on this mission for her…it’s the best.” Dumb-down much?

Stewart, on the other hand, names a very cool favorite film — Control. “[It’s] my favorite movie right now, because I’ve been watching a lot of band movies,” she says. “Sam Riley…like, any scene that he’s in, any scene in that movie, he’s incredible. Especially if you’re a fan of Joy Division or know anything about them, he’s astounding.”

Nine years ago I covered a Comic-Con panel called “Caught in the Net: Movie Webmasters on Hollywood, the Internet, and the Future of Their Bastard Child.” Chris Gore was the dark-haired and goateed moderator. Now look at him — he’s like a guy in a movie who has to age so the makeup team has given him a head of gray. Here’s Gore’s Twitter feed and some of the photos he’s taken.

I fell asleep at this party last night while sitting upright on a sofa. I was sitting there with a glass of champagne, and the next thing I knew a guy was tapping me on the shoulder and saying “Sir? Sir? Are you okay?” The half-filled champagne glass was still in my right hand.

This is a ludicrous idea. What has happened in Carol Channing‘s life that makes it biopic-worthy? She had a career, sang and danced, became world-famous, did Hello Dolly on-stage….what? Gay guys love Channing for being a kind of living caricature of a larger-than-life superstar — the raspy/reedy voice, large popping eyes, platinum blonde hair and wall-to-wall smile. Except that’s not a movie. Certainly not a theatrical one.

Now that Warner Bros. archives has announced the release of James Bridges‘ Mike’s Murder on DVD, it would be right and appropriate and respectful for Bridges’ original cut to be included on the disc. I don’t care if it’s a lowball archives release. Because it truly isn’t right for the sake of Bridges’ legacy for the longer version to be tossed and forgotten. It’s now or never. Seriously. Calling Jimmy Olsen!

The running time of the forthcoming WB Archives DVD is 110 minutes. The IMDB says the film (presumably the recut version that played in theatres in ’84) runs 109 minutes.

Here’s the IMD’s “trivia” recounting: “Writer/director James Bridges originally wrote and edited the film so that the story played chronologically backward, similar to what Memento and Irreversible did 16 years later. However, the studio got nervous, thinking it was too complicated and hard to follow, and had the film re-edited in chronological order for release.

“This was the first project Debra Winger did after An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). After a poor reception from preview audiences, the film was re-edited, the ad campaign was changed, and Joe Jackson‘s soundtrack music was mostly replaced. The film was eventually released on March 9, 1984 after Winger had a hit with Terms of Endearment (1983).”

Presumably there are HE readers who genuinely liked Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In any event Vanity Fair.com’s Julian Sancton has spoken to director David Yates about how he balances fans’ expectations and those of HP neophytes. He also talks about how the next movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be shot not only in two parts but in two ways. One will be gritty and edgy with hand-held shots. Then second will go back to the usual widescreen splendor.

I’m not feeling the Comic-Con current as much today. I don’t think anything can top what happened at yesterday’s Avatar presentation It’s all downhill from here. I’d like to attend the Hall H Warner Bros. show (10:00 am to 12:30 pm) but maybe I won’t. I don’t need to see product reels for Where The Wild Things Are, The Box, The Book of Eli, Sherlock Holmes and the new Jackie Earl Haley Nightmare on Elm Street. I don’t care what cheesy-genre-wallower Robert Rodriguez might say. I’d like to see Focus Features’ 9 presentation, however; ditto Sony’s District 9 and Legion presentation, which happens from 3:45 to 5 pm. I’m down for the James Cameron-Peter Jackson “visionary” discussion, of course, at 6:30 pm.

Kevin Spacey can tap-dance around all he wants, but I’ve been told that there’s a better-than-decent chance that David Fincher will direct The Social Network — a.k.a., “the Facebook movie.” Hot-air rumor blather says that Michael Cera or Shia Lebouf are the prime choices to play Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. I don’t think the producers are free to consider Paul Rust because of the
unremovable black stain called I Love
You, Beth Cooper. Lebouf could play Sean Parker, I suppose.
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