Month: August 2009

“Preservationists are also bracing for the potential loss of [Westwood] village’s two most architecturally distinctive theaters: the Village and Bruin, which date from the 1930s. Encino-based Mann Theatres has given notice that it intends not to renew its leases on the Broxton Avenue theaters — one Spanish Mission style with the famed neon-lighted Fox tower, the other Art Moderne with a distinctive wraparound marquee. Both are city historic-cultural monuments.” — from Martha Groves‘ 8.1 L.A. Times story, “Theatres Fading To Black in Westwood.”

This dead mouse was lying in front of my place in West Hollywood about 45 minutes ago. I figured right away “okay, man up, pick it up, put it in the dumpster.” My inner teenaged girl was reluctant to do this — I don’t like to handle dead things — but I shook it off and picked it up by the end of the tail. I was heading toward the garage when the tail fur slid off in my fingers and the mouse hit the pavement. I could feel dead-mouse tail grease on the tips of my right thumb and index finger. I figured he was somewhere between the icky gooey stage of decomposition and ants crawling over his eyeballs. No way was I going to pick this sucker up a second time.

It’s not very manly — I used to pick up dead animals all the time when I was a kid — but I decided that the best course would be to walk over to the washoom inside the restaurant next door and wash my hands. Which I did. Let somebody else take a shot with the mouse. Mine didn’t work.

I’ve been trying to (a) sell my black beater Nissan 240 SX (which runs reasonably well, isn’t that bad looking, has good brakes and unworn tires and a working radio/CD player) and (b) find someone to adopt/babysit the BMW yellow-jacket motorcycle (i.e., keep it and ride it now and then so the battery won’t die) and coming up blank on both fronts. You have to either drive vehicles or sell them — they can’t just sit in a garage. Over the last few days these two matters have been the biggest time swallowers apart from the InFilm tour, which came to an end yesterday. I fly back to Manhattan today at noon. Dead zone from 12:30 pm to 7 pm Pacific.

I never glance at Interview magazine much less read it, but Jack Nicholson‘s q & a with Mad Men‘s January Jones is…well, curious, of course. I presume the deal happened between Jones and Nicholson first and then the editors got involved, but still…odd. But he’s a relaxed and relaxing questioner and a very good listener. I would pay serious coin to read a series of interviews between Nicholson and two or three dozen actors, directors, screenwriters, producers, etc. He gets right down to it, knows exactly how things work and gets right into the strategies.

That said, the article’s headline copy is disingenuous by claiming the piece is “by Jack Nicholson” when it’s clear that he didn’t write the intro copy.

Yesterday’s opening-day tracking had Funny People with a multi-quadrant first-choice average of 14%…low. This translated, per Steve Mason, into an $8 million opening yesterday and a likely $22 million for the weekend. That’s roughly the same opening-stanza coin earned by The 40 Year-Old Virgin four years ago but half the amount earned by Todd Phillips‘ The Hangover.

That said and for what it’s worth, Funny People is the weekend’s #1 film, whipping the asses of G-Force, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Ugly Truth.

I went to this Howard Stern show clip from Thursday’s interview with Funny People guys Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen in order to hear their delivery of those reported Katherine Heigl-ripping comments. But the whole ten-minute excerpt (part 2 of a three-parter) is just fun to listen to.