Month: October 2014

Someday soon I really have to visit Wells, which I’ve been hearing about all my life and which my parents visited back in the ’80s. They told me it’s a pleasant little town with a big cathedral. A couple of hours southwest of London. Often described as England’s “smallest city” with only 11,000 residents, etc. It means something when your last name is the same as a village with a 2000-year history. (In ’87 my ex-wife and I once visited a town in East Germany called Lauta, her maiden name. Today I checked to see if there’s a town in Ireland named Kenny…nope.) Back in ’80 I was waiting for assistance in a British Airways office in London, and when I heard the guy call my name something clicked. “That‘s how it’s supposed to be pronounced!,” I said to myself. “You just need a British accent to say it right.”

Read more

Last June I reported that Paramount would open Rupert Wyatt, William Monahan and Mark Wahlberg‘s The Gambler in the “mid to late fall.” And then I missed the trade announcement that ran on 9.5 (i.e., the first day of the Toronto Film Festival) that it’s being given an awards-qualifying run on 12.19. In my Book of Hope and Dreams, this and Clint Eastwood‘s American Sniper are the December disrupters.

I’ve seen Birdman two and a half times but I swear I’ve seen this spooge-on-Mike clip online before, and yet the YouTube posting date says 10.7.14. One question about Naomi Watts‘ “we share a vagina” line and I’ll let it go. It suggests that Mike (Edward Norton), apparently her ex-boyfriend, either continues to poke her at will or recently had that liberty…right? “Share” and not “shared” means he currently has unlimited (or what feels to her like unlimited) invasion rights. I just don’t know about the word “share” in this context. It’s half-funny but another level it doesn’t sound right.

This 14-minute short from Rodrigo Garcia‘s Nine Lives (’05) is one of the most emotionally affecting two-handers I’ve ever seen in my life. I get what Robin Wright (married at the time to Sean Penn) is feeling in this thing; ditto her ex-lover Jason Isaacs. I know exactly what this kind of relationship is (I’ve been there) and these two nail it cold. I talked to Penn about this at a Spirit Awards presentation eight or nine years ago, and he said they shot it seven or eight times (or more…I forget) and finally got it right on the last take. It’s brilliant…perfect…please watch.

I don’t want to get within ten miles of the Stephen Collins situation, but I was struck yesterday by a summation from Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman: “Stephen Collins’ whole career and life are over. What kind of meds are there for this? How can he live with himself? How is that no one knew?” The safe, proper thing is to forget about Collins, I know, but what a mindblower. What can a 67-year-old who’s suddenly regarded as a demonic figure hope to do? Last night’s erroneous report of a gunshot coming from inside Collins’ home added a certain dimensionality to what a lot of people were thinking. He can no longer work in this or any other industry again so what does he do? Collins is looking at a Lord Jim situation squared. I would sell everything I have and move to Vietnam or Laos or Thailand or Myanmar in order to live cheap. And then devote my life to penance and satori. Maybe join a spiritual retreat that requires 100 days of silence and the wearing of robes and sandals and the shaving of one’s head…that kind of thing. Or grow a beard and just roam around and see what happens. Become a dharma bum on a motorcycle. Or maybe a rice farmer.

I love this photo of the Birdman guys (director Alejandro G. Inarritu, costars Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts), but I also like the dummies. I’ve run into these exact same waxworks before. I took a shot of them five and a half years ago (on 3.18.09) while observing filming of Phillip Noyce‘s Salt inside a synagogue on Park Avenue. It’s odd that so many of the male dummies have 1970s hairstyles in this day and age. It’s fine for a few males to have longish hair but times have changed. If I was the dummy rental guy I would do a little re-styling on most of them.

Salt dummies

Robert Welkos’ story about Broadcast Film Critics Association co-founder Joey Berlin being handsomely paid is a day old and I’m still not getting the hoo-hah. I run a small business that survives on advertising from distributors during Hollywood’s annual award season, and the income allows me to live a cautiously cool life with annual travel to Cannes and Berlin and Toronto and elsewhere…a pretty good gig. Berlin and his BFCA cronies run a much larger business (i.e., the annual Critics Choice Awards) that brings in a lot more dough than any columnist on my level. A lot more. Welkos reports that Berlin’s company, Berlin Entertainment, Inc., earned $859 grand in 2012 and a total of $1,851,347 between ’09 and ’12. Okay…what? The last time I looked everyone was trying to skin the award-season cat. Some with more honor than others. Sasha Stone and I do it one way (passionate advocacy), Berlin does it another, Kris Tapley has his own methodology, Scott Feinberg has a slightly different approach, Pete Hammond has his particular game and so on. David Poland didn’t really get into the Welkos story yesterday but he implied that the Berlin disclosures warrant further attention. I don’t see what the big deal is.

All I can say is that I went “oh, noooo!” pretty loudly when I clicked on this story, which broke earlier today. The less said the better but obviously Hugh Sloan has a big problem. Potential victims have to be protected. As reprehensible as the crime in question clearly is, it also seems rancid to post a recording of a private therapeutic discussion that involved an apparent confession.

This first aired on 9.26 when I was caught up in the New York Film Festival and watching no TV. Muslims come in all shapes and leanings and mindsets, but they clearly don’t respect minorities (particular gays) and their attitude toward women is ghastly. They make Mediterranean males, one of the worst sexist-dog cultures, seem enlightened by comparison. Over 133 million Muslim females in Africa and the Middle East have suffered genital mutilation. The Muslim faith is somewhat younger than Christianity, and I think there’s something to be said for the view that they’re currently in a phase that’s roughly analogous to the Middle Ages when Christian religious authority was far too powerful and dominating. There are “vast numbers of Muslims who believe — and they do — that humans deserve to die for merely holding different ideas or drawing a cartoon or writing a book or eloping with the wrong person…rule of law is better than a theocracy.” Sorry, Ben, but not this time.

Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence speaking to Vanity Fair‘s Sam Kashner on the nude-photo hacking incident: “[What happened was] a sex crime…a sexual violation. It’s disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. That’s why these websites are responsible. Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it. It’s so beyond me. I just can’t imagine being that detached from humanity. I can’t imagine being that thoughtless and careless and so empty inside.”

Also: “I was just so afraid. I didn’t know how this would affect my career.” Trust me — nobody in online consumerland thought for a half second that Lawrence was in any way compromised or lessened because she took some nude shots of herself and sent them to her boyfriend. At all. Nobody gave a shit.

Read more

Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil and I talked for a full effing hour this morning and covered everything, everything…well, almost everything. The Boyhood strategy from the AMC zombie-vampire guys. The place-holder status of Unbroken. The Birdman schwing. The Julianne Moore situation and how the good-but-not-great Still Alice may not be the bouncy diving board that she needs to do a big swan dive into the Oscar pool, everyone still agrees that this is her moment. Approvals for The Theory of Everything along with the gay community’s problem with The Imitation Game. The almost oppressive approach of Interstellar. That highly intriguing American Sniper teaser. Rob Marshall‘s influence upon Into The Woods. Inherent Vice is a cult film. Big Eyes…who knows? Fury pong. For some reason we didn’t touch Mr. Turner. We barely glanced at Exodus: Gods and Kings. Again, the mp3.

Two days ago a Glenn Whipp L.A. Times piece drove a stake through Gone Girl‘s Best Picture chances. The article assessed reactions to last Saturday’s Academy screening of David Fincher‘s film, and the basic take-away was that the 50-plus crowd was mostly underwhelmed or “subdued.” Nobody Whipp spoke to seemed to understand that Gone Girl is a kind of Luis Bunuel film, and that Gillian Flynn‘s story is only the half of it, that the film is really about the social-cultural undercurrent…about all of us. One Academy guy told Whipp that “this is first-class filmmaking but, like a lot of [Fincher’s] other movies, you admire it more than you enjoy it.” Are you hearing this douchebag? First-class chops and socially pungent content aren’t enjoyable enough. He wants to laugh, to be charmed, hugged and caressed, to have his heart melted down. “What did I just see?” one Oscar-nominated producer said to Whipp as he walked along Wilshire Boulevard to his car. “That’s it? Really? I’ve seen better social commentary in a good episode of Bob’s Burgers.”

You can lead a 62 year-old Academy member to a screening, but you can’t make him “see” it. Yes, I wish that just one time Academy members could stand inside my shoes. They’d know what a drag it is to report about them.