Day: March 3, 2010

Some selective replies to Movieline‘s “In Memoriam” Oscar Montage Pool, to wit: (a) I have a feeling they might leave out Marilyn Chambers, although you can’t talk about the ’70s without mentioning Behind The Green Door, and Soupy Sales, due to his never being a Hollywood guy and much more of a local New York TV phenomenon; (b) If I were editing the death montage I’d open it with Al Martino or Maurice Jarre; (c) And I’d end it with an extended clip reel of John Hughes‘ films; (d) the first video clip will probably be about Farrah Fawcett; (e) the first dialogue clip may go to Ron Silver (probably from Reversal of Fortune) ; (f) the first actor named will be either Silver, Karl Malden or Edward Woodward; (g) the first actress named will be either Fawcett or Brittany Murphy; (h) Eric Rohmer will certainly be included; and (i) I don’t see them going all the big with a Michael Jackson tribute — two or three musical clips at most.

And as long as we’re on the topic, let’s remember once again how five years ago (i.e., on the Februay 2005 telecast) the great Marlon Brando — probably the most influential actor of the 20th Century, a God, a sphinx among men — wasn’t given a special video montage by Oscar show producers Gil Cates and Lou Horvitz, but that Johnny Carson was. Because Carson was better liked and Brando was a pain in the ass. This was one of the most shameful moments in the entire history of the Oscars.

This snap, of course, shows the filming of Inglourious Basterds costar Melanie Laurent as she runs from the clutches of Christoph Waltz at the end of the famous French farmhouse house. if you know this scene you know she runs across the field barefoot. (Director Quentin Tarantino included an insert shot of her dirty bare feet.) You’ll notice in this shot, of course, that she’s wearing Nikes. My heart sank when I spotted this. I felt almost betrayed.

Tarantino, clearly, is no Eric von Stroheim-styled realist. If I’d been the director I would have told Laurent the following: “Closeups, inserts, master shots…you’re supposed to be running barefoot across a field and that’s the reality of the scene. I don’t care how good an actress you are or if no one ever suspects you aren’t barefoot in the closeup shots. I just don’t want you wearing fucking Nikes during a World War II film…period. Wearing them betrays the reality of the character, the period…it’s the same thing as being stoned before I call ‘action!'”

Hollywood legend has it that Von Stroheim insisted that actresses in an historical film he was directing had to wear authentic underwear from the period. The audience could have never known this, but von Stroheim knew. And on some level he felt it mattered in terms of the reality being portrayed. That’s the mark of a true madman.

Because he believes he’s the real-life model for Jeremy Renner‘s Sgt. James in The Hurt Locker, and because he could use the scratch, Sergeant Jeffrey S. Sarver yesterday filed a major-bucks lawsuit against the Hurt Locker team — director Kathryn Bigelow, writer-producer Mark Boal, Summit Entertainment and Nicolas Chartier‘s Voltage Pictures.

Sarver’s attorney Geoffrey Fieger, who’s also looking for dough, wrote in a prepared statement: “Plaintiff, Master Sgt. Jeffrey S. Sarver, is, in fact, the film’s main character ‘Will James’ or ‘Blaster One’ [which was Master Sgt. Sarver’s call signal during his tours of duty in Iraq].”

A Wrap summary states that “the suit alleges that Boal, was allowed, as part of an armed services press program, to be embedded in Master Sgt. Sarver’s unit. It further alleges that ‘virtually all of the situations portrayed in the film were, in fact, occurrences involving Master Sgt. Sarver that were observed and documented by Screenwriter Boal. Master Sgt. Sarver also coined the phrase ‘Hurt Locker’ for Boal.”

“Summit issued this statement on Tuesday: ‘We have no doubt that Master Sergeant Sarver served his country with honor and commitment risking his life for a greater good, but we distributed the film based on a fictional screenplay written by Mark Boal.'”

An AP story about the suit quotes Sarver as saying “he was never offered a role in the making of the movie. “I could have helped out a little bit,” Sarver said at today’s news conference in Southfield, Michigan. “But they chose not to (involve me).”

“Fieger said greed was the reason Sarver wasn’t permitted to participate in the film or be recognized for his role as the inspiration for the main character. Now, he said: ‘They’re gonna owe him a whole lot of money and recognition.’

“[I’m feeling] just a little bit hurt, a little bit felt left out,” Sarver said. “Just hoping that Mr. Fieger can make things right.”

Vanity Fair‘s Evgenia Peretz has a nicely written profile of Michael Douglas, star of Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps (as well as a Toronto Film Festival fizzler called Solitary Man). The theme is about fatherhood, and how Douglas — a lousy dad in some respects when he was younger, which apparently had an unfortunate impact on his 31 year-old son Cameron — is determined not to screw it again with his new brood.

North American rights to Woody Allen‘s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger have been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics. A fall release is planned, but this seems to indicate that the London-shot film — which stars Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Freida Pinto and Naomi Watts — will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. A little man in my chest is telling me that Allen’s untitled next film, which will roll in Paris this summer with Owen Wilson, Marion Cotillard and Carla Bruni co-starring, has a certain apartness or special-tude. No reason, just a gut thing, etc.

So now there will be two Abraham Lincoln movies — Robert Redford‘s The Conspirator and Tim Burton‘s just-announced Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter — before Steven Spielberg gets off his sorry sagging ass and pulls the trigger on his years-delayed, Tony Kushner-scripted Lincoln project, which once upon a time (i.e., five years ago) was seen as a golden opportunity for Liam Neeson to portray the nation’s 16th president.

Burton would be teaming with Timur Bekmambetov, the Russian-born, animal-level director of Wanted — i.e., one of the stupidest and most absurdly illogical high-octane thrillers ever made — on an adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith‘s novel “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” which portrays the Great Emancipator as “an ax-throwing, highly trained vampire assassin,” to borrow from a sentence in a Variety story.

The Burton-Bekmambetov flick sounds cool, but I’m more interested in an Honest Abe Lincoln/vampire-killing video game. I’m fairly certain that John Ford and Raymond Massey would feel the same way if they were with us. This story needs a quote from Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Even people with no lives to speak of need to see a dentist every so often. I’ll bring the laptop and aircard along and see what happens.

I briefly visited last night’s soiree for Village Voice columnist Michael Musto at 230 Fifth. The main idea was to celebrate Musto’s 25th anniversary as a Voice columnist (“La Dolce Musto“); it was also a friends-of-Michael, Mardi-Gras-like gathering with all manner of exotic attitude and flamboyance, including a good 40 or 50 tranny-glammy cross-dressers. Joan Rivers did the opening intro; Murray Hill emcee’d. Performers included Dirty Martini, Bridgett Everett, Tommy Femia and Vodka Stinger.

Village Voice columnist Michael Musto greeting guests as stage show began.

Joan Rivers — those cheek implants! — introducing Musto.

North-facing view from penthouse of 230 Fifth Avenue.