Month: September 2015

Steve Jobs screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has rehashed his “unethical American journalists exploited the Sony hack for their puny contemptible gains” riff in a 9.29 Hollywood Reporter piece by Alex Ritman, which stems from quotes Sorkin gave during a London round-table discussion.

“The worst part [of the Sony hack] was seeing the American press as a willing accomplice, an eager accomplice to terrorism,” Sorkin said, repeating a view that hit the press on or about 12.17.14. “I don’t know how these reporters who printed the stuff can look at themselves in the morning.” He stated that the Sony hack was a “low point” for the American press, which he claimed had “absolutely aided and abetted terrorism.”

Sorkin believes that journos should have ignored the hacked material, adding that “you cannot tell me that an argument about Angelina Jolie is newsworthy or what Cameron Crowe’s troubles are in post-production on Aloha is newsworthy or any of the Steve Jobs stuff was newsworthy.”

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Earlier today Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil was telling me I have to make sure that my Gold Derby predictions square with my HE Oscar Balloon charts. He was focusing in particular on the Best Actress graph that I posted last Saturday in which I included Amy Schumer‘s Trainwreck performance in fifth or sixth place. Because I felt like it. Because now is the time for plugging your personal favorites every so often. I don’t give a damn if anyone agrees with me or not. I’m not placing bets at a dog track. It’s September and Schumer moved me, and so I included her. I’m just saying she deserves a shout-out. I don’t care if you don’t agree. I know what I know.

Earlier today David Poland tweeted that my Best Actress chart was “idiotic.” You know what’s idiotic or at least seriously lame? Ignoring your own aesthetic instincts so you can appear to be “right” in predicting likely favorites in late fucking September. I’ll play the prediction game to some extent but I reserve the right to promote exceptional work, regardless of how likely this or that choice may seem to Sasha Stone or Glenn Whipp or Scott Mantz. There’s plenty of time to start narrowing things down in late October, November and December.

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Paul Verhoeven‘s Showgirls opened and crashed on 9.22.95. I’d attended a press screening a week or two before and figured that was enough, but I manfully sat through it a second time a couple of weeks after it opened, or sometime in early October. Reason? Jack Nicholson. Yeah, yeah, I’ve told this story a couple of times before but indulge me…

I was having dinner that night with Robert Evans in his combination rear bungalow and screening room. It was (and as far as I know still is) a cozy little abode located behind his circle-shaped pool in the backyard of his French chateau-styled place on Woodland Avenue. And the guests that night were Bryan Singer, Chris McQuarrie and Tom DeSanto. And we were all enjoying the great food (served by Alan, Evans’ good-guy butler) and a nice buzz from the excellent wine.

I was Evans’ journalist pallie back then.  I had written a big piece about Hollywood Republicans earlier that year for Los Angeles magazine, and Evans had been a very helpful source. As a favor I’d been arranging for him to meet some just-emerging GenX filmmakers — Singer, McQuarrie, Owen Wilson (who had come over a week or two earlier), Don Murphy, Jane Hamsher, et. al. — so that maybe, just maybe, he could possibly talk about making films with them down the road.

During the dinner Evans was doing a superb job of not asking Singer, McQuarrie or DeSantos anything about themselves. He spoke only about his past, his lore, his legend. But the vibe, to be sure, was cool and settled and almost serene. And then out of the blue (or out of the black of night) one of the French doors opened and Nicholson, wearing his trademark shades, popped his head in and announced to everyone without saying hello that “you guys should finish…don’t worry, don’t hurry or anything…we’ll just be in the house…take your time.”

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I saw Kent Jones‘ Hitchcock/Truffaut in Paris on 5.11.15, and posted a review the next day: “This 80-something-minute doc is a sublime turn-on — a deft educational primer about the work and life of Alfred Hitchcock and, not equally but appreciably, Francois Truffaut. Efficient, well-ordered, devotional. The bounce, if you will, comes from the talking heads — David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Olivier Assayas, Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, James Gray, Arnaud Depleschin, one or two others — each enthused and semi-aglow in their own way. Memories, associations, gratitude.

“To me Hitchcock/Truffaut seems good and wise enough to seduce the novice as well as the sophisticated cineaste. It’s a fully absorbing, excellent education. As you might expect, it made me want to read the book all over again.

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